It's gonna be a hot July meme lovers, but at least it won't be as hot as that Orc City that the elven king burned down, right?

This week was filled with viral oddities and do-dads, including an inescapable GIF of Rumi Sniffing Kimbap, a fresh new way to speak known as the "Solid Snake Method" and a Smart Guy With Glasses whose piercing stare will never leave our brains.

Here are five of the biggest memes of the past week that you need to check out.

Orc City

Writer John A. Douglas felt the silliest version of the internet's wrath recently when he dared to suggest that beloved video game designer Hideo Kojima isn't a genius, forcing him to look his own writing about an "orc city" in the face.

Douglas' tweet specifically criticized Kojima for naming one of his villains "Fat Man" and then designing him as an overweight wino in a metal bomb disposal suit and rollerskates, sarcastically ending the post with the word "genius."

A lot of users vehemently disagreed with Douglas, inspiring one person to comment a screenshot of the opening to Douglas' book, The Black Crown. In the passage, Douglas describes an orc city burning to the ground, writing that the ground was "soaked in a knuckle's depth of blood and ash" and that "The Orc Wars were finally over."

The passage didn't exactly wow a lot of readers, but it did inspire a whole lot of memes. Soon enough, X / Twitter users started using memes to riff on the idea of the orc city, applying references to the paragraph to as many formats as possible.

Remember, everyone, when it comes to art, the idea of "genius" is highly subjective. Maybe don't come after the king if you're not ready to defend yourself from the swarm of orcs that wait behind him.

Examples

Papa Squid Game

The Squid Game fandom is continuing its tradition of hurling absurd memes at the internet with the latest viral TikTok craze, "Papa Squid Game."

@naluu_55 papa… #squidgame #papa #trend #fyp #pourtoi #papaa #recherche #stikers ♬ original sound – 🎀 。~『はじめまして』~ 。🎀

The Papa Squid Game meme is like a lot of other brainrot memes on TikTok these days in that it purposely avoids making sense. The meme is based on a blown-out edit of Squid Game actor Lee Byung-hun, who plays Front Man, pasted onto a cartoon body holding a baby Lee Jung-jae, who plays Seong Gi-hun.

To top things off, the image is associated with a strange audio consisting of a baby saying, "Papa," over an eerie piano tune. The meme is intentionally weird and pointless.

Many people are simply reposting the image with the song without making any changes to either. Others are editing Papa Squid Game into new settings, making elaborate edits about his backstory and turning other Squid Game characters into Papa and Mamas.

If you've never seen Squid Game before, let this meme either be the thing that finally gets you to check it out, or the thing that convinces you to avoid it forever.

Examples

@xssume papaaa || #fyp #fypシ #foryou #xssume #edit #trend #squidgame ♬ original sound – xssume

papa_papa_134340 Papa… #papa #squidgamenetflix #leebyunghun #leejungjae ♬ sonido original – 🍀☘️Alex@🥰🍀🍃🍀🍃🍀🍃🍃☘️

papa_papa_134340 Thank you papa 🥰 #papa #leejungjae #leebyunghun #netflixsquidgame ♬ sonido original – 🍀☘️Alex@🥰🍀🍃🍀🍃🍀🍃🍃☘️

@keine_ahnungjunge0 Papa 😰 #alphasigma #paygorn #fyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy #squidgame #paygorn #paygorn #paygorn #alphawolf #alphasigma ♬ original sound – ☆

Rumi Sniffing Kimbap

Netflix dropped the animated film K-Pop Demon Hunters recently to widespread acclaim, and even if you haven't seen the movie, you've probably seen this GIF of Rumi sniffing kimbap all over your feeds.

The GIF inspired a surprising amount of discourse as it spread on what might be the most inflammatory social media site online right now, X. Some people were calling it "Reddit-core," while others accused the scene and film in general of being "made-to-meme."

The less triggered people of the web simply expressed how much they enjoyed the scene, edited the scene to replace the kimbap and redrew the scene with other characters.

The discourse surrounding the GIF really does showcase how X can turn absolutely anything into a dumb controversy or debate. Clearly, these people have never dragged their noses across a roll of kimbap.

Examples

pre show ritual pic.twitter.com/qLcEqTfDl8

— bbno$ 👶🚫💰 (@bbnomula) July 6, 2025

Solid Snake Method

A long-running joke in the Metal Gear fandom has leaked across social media as the new way to deal with awkward social interactions, and it's known as the "Solid Snake Method of Conversation."

For those who haven't played Hideo Kojima's beloved video game series Metal Gear Solid, the protagonist character, Solid Snake, has a very specific way of talking to people that many gamers have picked up on over the years. When someone says something to Snake, he tends to repeat what they said as a question rather than adding anything of substance to the conversation.

In 2023, this became known as the "Solid Snake Method" after a 4chan user made a post about using it in real-life situations to kill awkward silences.

Recently, the 4chan post went viral on X, inspiring a whole lot of interest in the idea. The post inspired a whole lot of reactions and memes about using the Snake Method before it was deleted, spreading the practice to a whole new generation of socially awkward people as a remedy for social anxiety.

Examples

Smart Guy With Glasses

Finally, Russian influencer Jan To'ples made a big splash on social media as the "Smart Guy With Glasses" when a captivating photograph of him staring into your soul became a flash-in-the-pan meme format.

This is mostly a Russian meme, but it's spread outside of Russia on sites like TikTok, Instagram and X is undeniable. The photo was originally posted by the influencer to his Instagram page in 2018 and came out of nowhere to take over Russian social media at the end of June 2025 as a moldy meme.

Soon enough, people started joking that the man resembled a "Smart Guy With Glasses" phone wallpaper, a joke that is now forever attached to the photo.

In the spirit of milking the meme for all its worth, people then started using AI to alter the man's appearance, essentially changing him into entirely new people for no real reason. Thanks, Russia.

Examples

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We'll be back next Friday with another edition of our Weekly Meme Roundup series, so stay tuned!

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