The Internet Encyclopedia of Memes

Think of any meme. It could be the scribbled image of party goers and one man—off alone to the side, donning a party hat and holding a cup—with a caption that reads “They don’t know...” Maybe it’s the surprised Pikachu, accompanying a description of an entirely predictable outcome that nevertheless leaves someone stunned. It could be the unsettling videos slicing into bags, plants, and animals that, inevitably, turn out to be cake. 

If you’re seeing a meme again and again, populating your Twitter feed or recurring on your TikTok For You page, more likely than not, it’s been meticulously documented on Know Your Meme, an online encyclopedia cataloging internet memes. It probably has a standalone page, tracing back the origins of the meme, archiving interesting iterations and spinoffs, and cataloging its significance to the internet and the wider world. 

The “They Don’t Know” meme blew up in its current form in November 2020 on Twitter but actually originated in 2009 on the internet humor website Sad and Useless. The “Surprised Pikachu” pulls its iconic image from Season 1, Episode 10, “Bulbasaur and the Hidden Village.” The Cake or Fake phenomenon was first jump started by an April Fool's Day joke by the website CakeWreck in 2011. Know Your Meme’s deep encyclopedic catalog of the memes that populate the web make it one of the most important sites on the internet. 

For the past 15 years, Know Your Meme has documented internet culture from across the web—from 4chan and Reddit to Twitter and TikTok. For nearly 12 of those years—or what he describes as “an eternity in internet years”—Don Caldwell has been at the forefront at Know Your Meme, most recently as the Editor-in-Chief. He’s made nearly 100,000 contributions to the site, slowed only by moving into a managerial role at the company. He leads efforts for  the site’s encyclopedia database for which they’re best known, but also their insights operation, Know Your Meme News, and Editorials section—as well as their video operations on Youtube, Snapchat, Facebook, and TikTok. His advice and expertise is often called on in the media to dissect the latest meme or internet culture craze, from memers taking over TikTok to the viral classic meme to NFT gold rush.

I got to chat with the anthropology major turned internet documentarian behind the world’s greatest meme collection. Don’s internet culture knowledge is as encyclopedic as the database he’s helped shape and his insights on the evolution of memes was a delight to dive into.