Why so many memes come from Asia
A meme format is a reusable template: a fixed image or phrase plus a slot for a new joke. Many formats that feel global started in Japanese manga and anime, Korean pop culture or East Asian message boards. They often became memes years after the source aired, usually through a fan subtitle or an English dub line that stuck.
Knowing the origin helps you use a format correctly. Below, each entry gives the source, the year, the meaning and the usual setup.
Anime formats
Omae wa mou shindeiru / NANI?!
Kenshiro's catchphrase "You are already dead" comes from Fist of the North Star, the manga by Buronson and Tetsuo Hara that began in Weekly Shōnen Jump in 1983. In the meme, one person says the line and the target shouts "NANI?!" (Japanese for "what?!"). Use it for an outcome that was decided before the victim noticed.
Source: Shueisha, 1983.
Is this a pigeon?
A still from The Brave Fighter of Sun Fighbird, a 1991 Sunrise anime. The android hero points at a butterfly and asks if it is a pigeon. The meme labels the person, the butterfly and the question with a confident wrong conclusion. A Tumblr user first posted the subtitled frame in 2011, and the image spread widely in 2018.
Source: Sunrise, 1991.
It's over 9000!
Vegeta reads Goku's power level in Dragon Ball Z. In the original Japanese he says over 8,000. The English dub of the episode "The Return of Goku" (1997) changed it to 9,000, and that dubbed line became the meme in the mid-2000s. Use it for any number that is absurdly high.
Source: Toei Animation; English dub by Ocean Productions for Funimation, 1997.
K-pop and Korean formats
Gangnam Style
PSY released "Gangnam Style" on 15 July 2012. Its horse-riding dance became a parody format that schools, armies and companies copied. On 21 December 2012 it was the first YouTube video to pass 1 billion views, as YouTube announced that day.
Source: YouTube, 2012.
Fancam replies
A fancam is a fan-filmed performance clip that follows one idol. In the late 2010s, fans posted fancams as replies under unrelated viral posts on Twitter. The fancam drop itself became a joke format: any thread can end with a sudden dance clip.
ㅋㅋㅋ and ㅠㅠ
ㅋ is the Korean consonant for a k sound. Typed in a row, ㅋㅋㅋ sounds like laughter, the Korean "lol". ㅠㅠ looks like two crying eyes. Both appear in captions, comments and reaction images.
Message boards, emoji and text
2channel and ASCII art
Hiroyuki Nishimura launched the Japanese board 2channel in 1999. Its users built characters from text, such as the cat Mona (モナー). This text art spread to other boards worldwide.
Source: 2channel, 1999.
Kaomoji and the first emoji
Kaomoji such as (^_^) are read upright, not sideways like :-). In 1999 Shigetaka Kurita designed 176 emoji of 12 by 12 pixels for NTT Docomo's i-mode phones. The Museum of Modern Art added the set to its collection in 2016.
Source: The Museum of Modern Art, 2016.
www, kusa and 666
Japanese users type w for warau (to laugh). A long row of w looks like grass, so 草 (kusa, grass) also means "lol". In Chinese gaming chat, 666 praises a great play, because 六 (liù, six) sounds like 溜 (liù, smooth or skilled).
Doge
Kabosu was a Shiba Inu in Japan. Her owner, Atsuko Sato, posted the side-eye photo on her blog on 13 February 2010. In 2013 people added Comic Sans captions such as "such wow" and "much wow", and Doge became a global format. Kabosu died on 24 May 2024.
Source: Atsuko Sato's blog, 2010 and 2024.
Meme caption maker
Type a top and bottom caption, pick the colours and the shape, and save a PNG. The text shrinks automatically until each caption fits in its band. Everything runs in your browser: nothing is uploaded, and the panel contains no copyrighted images.
How it works: each caption gets a band of 40% of the panel height and 92% of its width. The maker starts at your largest text size, wraps words onto new lines, and steps the size down by 2 px until the lines fit (minimum 16 px).
Frequently asked questions
What does NANI mean in memes?
Nani is Japanese for "what". In the Omae wa mou shindeiru format, the victim shouts "NANI?!" after being told "you are already dead", a line from Fist of the North Star (1983).
Why did the Japanese Vegeta say 8,000 and not 9,000?
In the original Japanese Dragon Ball Z, Vegeta says Goku's power level is over 8,000. The English dub of the episode "The Return of Goku" (1997) changed the number to 9,000, and that dubbed line became the meme.
What does ㅋㅋㅋ mean?
ㅋ is the Korean consonant for a k sound. Typed in a row, ㅋㅋㅋ imitates laughter, like lol or haha. ㅠㅠ shows two crying eyes.
Can I use anime screenshots in my memes?
Anime frames belong to their studios and publishers. The caption maker on this page uses no screenshots. It draws a plain colour panel, so the image you save contains only your own text.
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