This year has been full of ups and downs, but every month still had something to offer. I thought back all the way to the beginning of the year to find at least one good thing and an iconic meme from every month. Because as bad as the year might’ve made us feel, I was determined to find something we thought was worth living for.

In January,  gamers rejoiced when Resident Evil 2 was released, and the meme-appreciators rejoiced when “the world record egg” took Kylie Jenner’s place as the most-liked photo on Instagram.

February yielded the release of The Lego Movie’s sequel, The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part. It also gifted us the delightful “Kasey Musgraves meme.” 

Billie Eilish’s album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go was released in March, which is coincidentally, also the month that the Scantron meme really got big.

In April, we all couldn’t sleep after the release of Stephen King’s Pet Semetary, and nobody could wrap their head around why everyone was fixing all their things with Instant Ramen. Nobody really understood the choice of material in the meme, but we were all none the less, entertained.

May brought us on a magic carpet ride with the live-action remake of Aladdin featuring Naiomi Scott as Jasmine, Mene Massoud as Aladdin, and Will Smith as Genie. The meme in May was a Tik Tok trend, it was, oddly enough, gummy bears singing “Someone Like You” by Adelle.

In June, Lil Nas X gave us “Panini,” a hilarious bop that everyone was non-stop playing, and along with Panini, everyone was cracking up over the “me and the boys” meme. The primarily used format of the meme is an image of 60’s Spider-Man, Rhino, on a still image from episode 19 “To Catch a Spider / Double Identity” of 1967 animated TV series Spider-Man showing characters Vulture, Electro and Green Goblin smiling.

Along with the scorching heat, July also brought with it, the third season of Netflix’s Stranger Things. The insanely popular show’s third installment wasn’t the only thing everyone was talking about. The “stonks” meme became immensely popular this summer.

August’s Hobbs and Shaw had almost every action movie fan ecstatic. Featuring such recognizable names as Dwane Johnson and Kevin Hart, the movie was iconic. Another icon, at least in the meme world, is the “surprised Pikachu.” Surprised Pikachu is one of the memes that I’ve seen the most of this year, by far. 

Mario Kart, by far one of the most popular phone games this year, came out in September. As of now, Mario Kart is rated #1 racing game on the App Store and has 4.8 stars. It features most of the original Mario game’s characters. Although the Area 51 memes had been happening all summer, the actual “raid” happened in September. It was more of a big party than a raid of a government facility, but people still had fun none the less.

In October, The Joker, one of this year’s most anticipated movies, was released. Juaquin Phoenix had the lead role as the Joker. Very unsurprisingly, October had hundreds of spooky-themed memes of all sorts, and needless to say, they were all pretty hilarious. 

Hallelujah! Season four of Rick and Morty finally came out in November. After almost two years of waiting, we were blessed with another set of adventures from the lovable icons. Throughout the year, there always seemed to be a SpongeBob meme for the occasion. In fact, there have been so many memes about it, mere presence has become a meme.

One of the many December releases we can all look forward to is The Rise of Skywalker.  This will be the ninth installation of the series. As far as memes go, nobody knows what people will find funny in December. People’s humor is so advanced that there is no telling what the members of December will enjoy.