See The Winner Of January 2025's Meme Of The Month!

And the meme of January 2025 goes to …

Seong Gi-Hun and his previous experience participating in death games in South Korea. The image of the Squid Game character, portrayed by Lee Jung-jae, vehemently insisting that he took part in "these games" before has become a popular reaction image and clip, and later a redraw format, too. Humorously recontextualizing the image and applying it to a variety of games, whether video, social or romantic, has been an endless source of memes over the past month, so it's only natural that Gi-Hun manages to secure the top spot on the list with over 32.5 percent – nearly a third – of the votes. He has played these games before, after all.

Eye of Rah

With the cinematic adaptation of The Odyssey recently announced, it looks like we got an early cast reveal for the role of Polyphemus to be played by the one and only Rashad Bowens, the Cyclops of TikTok, the bearer of the "Eye of Rah." The man turned hood cryptid at the arms of the talented Jeremiah Springfield who sports the now iconic red dreads and mono eye combo has been the most in-demand ingredient on the TikTok's brainrot kitchen, and unsurprisingly gets the second place on our poll with nearly 10.5 percent of total votes.

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7441731054844562710

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7456302493488712968

Elon Musk Salute

Elon Musk's extremely sussy gesture at Donald Trump's second inauguration has sparked a massive controversy for one obvious reason — it looked very much like Mr. Musk casually threw out a "Sieg Heil" salute on live TV in front of millions of Americans. Whatever Musk meant by his gesture, which he used right before saying "my heart goes out to you," the salute was interpreted by many as a sign of worse things to come and will definitely be remembered as one of the moments that defined the start of Trump's second presidency. One of Elon Musk's moments of all time gets third place with 9.5 percent of total votes.

TikTok U.S. Ban

Yet another consequence of United States politics has ended up in fourth place with over 6.5 percent of your votes. We are talking about the short-lived ban of TikTok in the United States that happened in mid-January. The banhammer has hung above TikTok ever since Trump's administration put it there at the very end of his first presidency in January 2020, casting its shadow over the Chinese app for four long years till the Supreme Court finally decided to uphold the law that mandated TikTok's shutdown some four years later. While the app temporarily became unavailable for users in the U.S., TikTok's death was greatly overblown, as the service was restored in the United States just one day later. We survived through the TikTok "ban" and didn't even get a lousy T-shirt for it.

I Bought a Property in Egypt

What's Eye of Rah without its trusty sidekick, I Bought a Property in Egypt? The Sancho Panza of January 2025 TikTok meta, the viral video by grindset influencer Cam Easty has been a vital ingredient of Viggle.ai-powered lobotomy cocktails that TikTok mememakers have been feeding the masses the entire month, gaining its status after a user cut off everything that goes after the "they give you the property" line and turned the video into an anti-meme. Buying property in Egypt gets 5.5 percent of your votes, which wraps up our top five for the month.

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7443041922916076833

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7456560731446594848

But our list doesn't end here. As usual, here are the January memes that didn't have the juice to get to top five and will have to settle for honorable mentions instead: a dog dramatically closing its eyes (5.5%), the redraw powerhouse of a guy sipping beer on a couch (5%), Marvel Rivals' essential Jarvis Clip That (4.5%), grinding global rank in Jerkmate with your squad (3.5%), Mr. Washee Washee finding himself at all sorts of inopportune locations (3.5%), the very first case of "goonicide" (3.5%), two Robotniks dancing like no tomorrow (3%), getting interrupted by a band of talented mice (2.5%), a curious case of Chopped Chin (2%), the lovely return to expressionism with I Depend on You (1%) and Elon Musk being stripped of his epic gamer card (1%).