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Inspired by The Many Memes of Meta on meta.stackexchange.

Catchphrases and concepts that spread from person to person are known as memes, which, courtesy the Internet, can now explode across the Earth like a highly contagious virus (hence "going viral"). As with their real-life counterparts, some infectious diseases are global (pandemic), while others are endemic to specific regions.

Let's list the memes of EL&U here to have a museum of EL&U memes.

Note: One meme per answer please.

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    I don't think there are any memes on EL&U (meta perhaps...), nearly any attempt at humour or irony is immediately squashed and downvoted because it's off topic. I don't recall seeing anything "off-beat" that is repeated among its users. Maybe "unicorns" is something I see waved around, but doesn't that come from SE?
    – Mari-Lou A
    May 14, 2015 at 5:52
  • @Mari-LouA: I guess this is just another attempt. Let's see what happens. However, it is not only about humor. I think anything popular can be listed as meme. There is no strict rule about what to list here.
    – ermanen
    May 14, 2015 at 5:55
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    I'm sorry, the gesture and thought behind the question was nice. But EL&U just isn't like that. They only let their hair down when it's Winter bash!
    – Mari-Lou A
    May 14, 2015 at 16:00
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    ELU has all the zombie grammar memes floating around; we hear them again and again from newbies: sequence of tenses, subjunctive mood, article definitions, eight parts of speech, four-on-the-floor conditionals, future tense, present progressive tense, etc, etc, etc. We don't need any special ones here; it's all we can do to deal with the reinfections that are epidemic with such a vast reservoir of ignorance.
    – John Lawler
    May 14, 2015 at 16:30
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    Does pineapple count?
    – anongoodnurse
    May 14, 2015 at 19:37
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    This was the best thing for me so far all day! Thanks!
    – anongoodnurse
    May 14, 2015 at 20:25
  • @medica pineapple most certainly counts! I'd write it up but I'm not sure about the origins. Please do so if you remember them.
    – terdon
    Sep 7, 2015 at 17:28

3 Answers 3

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Meme: Thank you for visiting ELU. Your question is off-topic. Please visit English Language Learners.

Origin: ?

Cultural Height: Still yet to come.

Background: Because 95% of questions asked on this site are borderline off-topic, you have a very high chance of seeing this in most questions. It doesn't seem possible to prevent the questions from being asked, so the best we can do is tell them they're on the wrong site after the fact.

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    ...In other words, the best we can do is to be constructively unconstructive. :)
    – Erik Kowal
    May 15, 2015 at 5:40
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Meme: _________ hits on Google

Origin: Possibly Janus Bahs Jacquet

Cultural Height: 23,460,000 hits on Google

Background: Often used to justify a single-word-request answer, no suggestion can possibly be considered complete without stating just how easy it was to search for on Google. Seen here, here, here, and partially debunked here.

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Meme:

Originator: Community♦ (creator of the tag)

Cultural Height: Every day (almost?)

Background: Most popular and most discussed question type on EL&U. (third most-used tag currently).

Related: Word for disrespecting eldest half-sister by referring to her husband as girly-girl-manly-boy though he's amused but the rest of the family isn't?

Note: The meme is not just about it being a tag. It covers all the absurd single word request questions we get and the discussions regarding to this question type.

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    I don't know why this answer is greyed out, but I agree that "single-word-requests" is one of the stupidest features of ELU. It serves no purpose that I can see, and almost never produces a useful answer.
    – John Lawler
    May 14, 2015 at 16:26
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    single word request meme
    – anongoodnurse
    May 14, 2015 at 19:49
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    Single word request meme
    – anongoodnurse
    May 14, 2015 at 19:53
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    Single word meme
    – anongoodnurse
    May 14, 2015 at 20:03
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    @JohnLawler It's a phenomenon, but it isn't an internet meme in the sense of a catchphrase or snowclone.
    – curiousdannii
    May 15, 2015 at 5:06
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    If you say so. I don't think "internet meme" has any useful definition that isn't 15 minutes old.
    – John Lawler
    May 15, 2015 at 14:47

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