About MemeOrigins

MemeOrigins is a plain-English reference for classic meme templates. Each explainer answers four questions: what does this meme mean, where did it come from, how do you use it correctly, and what mistakes break it?

The site exists because meme meanings are tribal knowledge — everyone is expected to already know why a dog is sitting in a burning room. Writing the context down, carefully and with the uncertainty flagged where the record is fuzzy, makes the jokes available to everyone: newcomers, parents, teachers, teams writing for international audiences.

Explainers are written fresh for this site. The original photographs and artworks belong to their creators; emoji stand in for them here. MemeOrigins is part of a small family of free meme tools built by Jimmy | ORBITFRAME — see the footer for the full set.