Many of us have enjoyed internet memes in some capacity, whether it's laughing at pictures of the Overly Attached Girlfriend or playing a 10-hour loop of Nyan Cat.

However, it often seems like a mystery how such things could get popular in the first place.

It turns out that nearly all successful memes have certain elements in common. By keeping these various things in mind, it is possible to understand why internet memes go viral.

Produced by Ryan Larkin.

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Grumpy Cat. Lil Bub. Princess Monster Truck. Cats officially rule the internet – and now the silver screen, as Grumpy Cat’s official movie, Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever, hits Lifetime on 29 November. But why are the furry critters so popular?

The key reason: they evoke an intense emotional response — usually veering somewhere between warmth and hilarity.

“People from all nations, age groups and backgrounds can unite over a single cat photo because cats are both simple and mysterious,” Thea Hamrén, associate creative director at agency Mr President believes.

Both a fan of Lil Bub and creator of the Cats Save Tigers campaign for Greenpeace, Hamrén has noticed a change over the years in how cats are seen in memes.

“It’s gone from being silly things that you send around the office, with a funny tagline, to a score of big, famous online cats that people follow religiously,” she explains, while noting that the owners of the famous cats fall into one of two categories: those doing it out of love for their pets, and those who have managers for their cats and are in it for the money.

The future, she believes, will lead to more of the latter. “I’m guessing that it’s getting more and more towards that. ‘The cat looks [ridiculous] and we might make money from it’, which is very much against what the cat culture stood came from: love for animals and love for your pets and pure joy, while I think is a little bit sad.”

One celebrity cat which could be seen as a ‘sell-out’ is Grumpy Cat. With its own movie set for release on Saturday 29 November, Grumpy Cat – managed by Ben Lash – has also appeared in adverts.

Cereal brand Honey Nut Cheerios and cat food brand Friskies are among those who have been able to claim Grumpy Cat as a star.

 “As the number one cereal in the United States, we are focused on staying current with our ads and who appears in them,” Gail Peterson, associate director of marketing for Honey Nut Cheerios, replies when asked why the cereal chose the cat to front an advert.

“Honey Nut Cheerios is always looking for things relevant to consumers today in pop culture. Grumpy Cat was a perfect fit for the brand and is popular with the whole family. We enjoyed seeing the interaction between Grumpy and Buzz the Bee in the ad.”

But what exactly is it that makes cat memes so popular?

 “The key reason why cat memes have been so successful online is that cats can be used to engage intense emotional responses in users. They tend to evoke warmth or hilarity: sometimes both,” suggests Ian Forrester, head of insights at social media marketing and analytics company Unruly Media.

Having spoken on the subject of "Why celebrities are a waste of money and cats don’t matter" at Social Media Week London in September, Forrester believes that in order for something to go viral, it needs to evoke a strong response – with cats managing this because “they are cute and do funny things”.

"How to Make Your Cat an Internet Celebrity", written by Patricia Carlin with photography by Dustin Fenstermacher, looks exactly at this. Sitting in boxes, playing on a roomba and being given a roll of toilet paper are given as ways to make aww-worthy videos.

Split into chapters looking at how to name your cat (white cat called Snowball or a ginger Garfield, anyone?), looking at your cat’s personality and what words you should tag a video with, Carlin suggests you don’t want to be “the only cretin in the world who failed to cash in” on the cat meme bandwagon.

This is all very well and good when it comes to individuals making person videos or memes, but it can be different when handled from a brand perspective.

“I don’t think brands monetizing memes is wrong: but the way that it is done at the moment is quite wrong, I think,” says Hamrén.

“You can’t just slap a logo on a meme and expect that to go well. You have to really get into that world and do it on their terms. It’s not really about advertising in that sense, it’s very low buy. It needs to be shared initially on the right channels: if it’s working Reddit you know it is working. It needs to be grassroots.”

This is something that Mr President aimed to do when creating its Cats Save Tigers campaign.

Making a cat meme go viral

“It was different because we didn’t try to sell anything. It was trying to be an awareness campaign for international tiger day and just to spread the word that Greenpeace is auctioning to save the tigers and try to reach a new younger audience. I think because of the pureness of the idea – there wasn’t anything ‘sticky’ in it – that’s why it worked.”

Hamén notes that there was “pretty much no budget” for the campaign: “Everyone did it for free and that’s why it went on to become such a success for us and exceeded all expectations when it came to reaching its audience. When you put a lot of money behind something and create a really high end to the ad for an internet meme it tends to go a little bit wrong, because it goes against the culture it is born from.”

While sharing cute cat videos may be seen as part of the cat culture, Forrester is keen to point out that only three of the top thousand shared videos feature cats.

“So while there are lots and lots of cat videos out there, there are other ways for social media success which don’t involve cats or babies,” he insists.

“Lots of brand managers can focus on cats and babies and think that is the only way to succeed in viral videos, but we’re finding that is not the case.”

So whether you’re just wanting to promote your cat because you love your furry friend, or you think a kitten will help sell your products, there are some things you need to take into account before, as Carlin puts it, the world is your litter box.

“There are a number of psychological responses that can help create a shareable ad: wonder, amazement, sadness, fear, anger. The key thing to do is to select psychological responses when best suits your brand, your brand’s message and personality,” Forrester suggests.

The cute factor is not enough.

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With a relentless look of malevolence, Grumpy Cat is not exactly cute.

But the piercing stare and air of withering contempt have proved astonishingly lucrative for the cat’s owner, Tabatha Bundesen of Morristown, Arizona.

In just two years the cat — whose real name is Tardar Sauce — has made $99.5 million from an array of products, including best-selling books and a film.

Not surprisingly, Bundesen believes her pet is "unstoppable."

She told the Express: "What she's achieved in such a short time is unimaginable and absolutely mind-blowing.

"I was able to quit my job as a waitress within days of her first appearance on social media, and the phone simply hasn't stopped ringing since."

Grumpy's earnings have dwarfed those of many of Hollywood's biggest names, such as Gwyneth Paltrow who, according to Forbes magazine, earned just over $18.6 million last year.

The cat is also outstripping the world’s top footballers including Christiano Ronaldo, whose total remuneration this year is estimated at $42.2 million.

Grumpy's permanent scowl is a result of her having been born with dwarfism and an underbite.

She became an internet superstar after Bundesen's brother posted a picture online.

Her fame spread rapidly especially once she was taken up by Ben Lashes — an "internet cat" agent.

The frown has proved irresistible on social media for 521,000 followers on Instagram and 255,000 on Twitter.

There have been a line of products including a brand of iced coffee, called Grumppuccino, and the cat is also "the face" of Friskies.

Last year the curmudgeonly cat appeared on the front pages of The Wall Street Journal and New York Magazine.

Grumpy’s big-screen debut is coming soon. The film "Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever" has been billed as a cross between "Home Alone" and "Die Hard."

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At least Grumpy Cat has an actual reason to be grumpy now.

Grumpy Cat, whose real name is Tardar Sauce, was thought to have made nearly $100 million from two books, a movie, and other products.

But Grumpy Cat's owner, Tabatha Bundesen, told The Huffington Post that number was "completely inaccurate."

Bundesen didn't say how much Grumpy Cat had actually raked in.

She seems to be holding out for an interview before diving into the details.

Grumpy Cat's famous frown comes from her dwarfism and underbite.

And even if she hasn't made $100 million, Grump Cat is definitely an internet celebrity. Bundesen's cat went viral in 2012, and she quit her waitressing jobs days later.

Now she spends most of her time traveling and making appearances.

Grumpy Cat has over 29 million views on her YouTube channel and more than 7 million likes on Facebook.

SEE ALSO: This 29-Year-Old Was A Waitress — Then She Got A Cat With Dwarfism, Quit Her Job, And Became A Multi-Millionaire

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In case you are scratching your head over the latest internet meme "crave that mineral" here's the skinny on where it came from.

About a month ago, popular Tumblr blogger "Sixpenceee" (a college student studying neuroscience who blogs about science-y things) posted the following:

Someone posted the photo to Reddit from Imgur, but  once Sixpenceee added that "crave that mineral" explanation, the Tumblr post went viral.

Soon we had this:

And this:

"They crave that mineral."

And a new Internet meme was born.

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The on-camera talent of America's highest-rated network evening news broadcast and "the 23rd-most-trusted person in the country" is now the face of viral internet memes.

Brian Williams, who has anchored "NBC Nightly News" for more than a decade, was forced to take a temporary leave of absence over "the next several days" amid the growing scandal of false claims he made regarding his reporting in Iraq.

Williams, who earns $13 million annually (making him America's fourth-highest-paid news broadcaster), admitted to confusing parts of a story he shared on air about riding in a helicopter shot down by a rocket-propelled grenade in 2003. On Wednesday, after multiple military members questioned Williams' personal account, which he had repeated on numerous occasions, he apologized on camera to his audience.

Since then, Williams' coverage of Hurricane Katrina and other notable accounts are under internal investigation.

Here are some of our favorite reactions:

riding shotgun with O.J. #BrianWilliamsMemoriespic.twitter.com/52E6h5tVcl

— Calhoun (@linkcalhoun) February 5, 2015

"Damn, those tablets were heavy!"#BrianWilliamsMisrememberspic.twitter.com/orXsbLU9Bf

— Serr8d (@serr8d) February 5, 2015

"That one live shot I did from the moon"#BrianWilliamsMemoriespic.twitter.com/FbND6jAqc7

— Greg Dutra (@DutraWeather) February 5, 2015

#BrianWilliamsMisremembers The opinion of the entire NBC News Division is that a blockade is best option here, Jack. pic.twitter.com/OxEua3DKkt

— Яob (@robx_d) February 5, 2015

Brian Williams misremembers -- Internet won't let him forget it: http://t.co/5Uu1kAuw9i#BrianWilliamsMisrememberspic.twitter.com/mDZbVGbvEJ

— Ryan Parker (@TheRyanParker) February 7, 2015

#BrianWilliamsMemoriespic.twitter.com/L30hn90BCP

— Яob (@robx_d) February 5, 2015

@zerohedge More breaking Brian Williams news... pic.twitter.com/DdVdKcOyh0

— Squeeze Indicator (@SqueezeTrading) February 8, 2015

#BrianWilliamsMisremembers Brian The Astronaut pic.twitter.com/keU4dSRBog

— Яob (@robx_d) February 5, 2015

"It wasn't a dream. It was a place. And you were there, and you, and you ...."#BrianWilliamsMisremembers#WizardOfOzpic.twitter.com/0T51hqBY9u

— Tracy L. (@ViewFromAskew) February 5, 2015

'84 was magical. I needed a perfect 10 on the vault to secure the gold...and I did it. #BrianWilliamsMisrememberspic.twitter.com/jY2bO8PPv2

— Mark Turcotte (@mark_turcotte) February 5, 2015

"The sky is literally falling here in Pangea…"#BrianWilliamsMemoriespic.twitter.com/LwDtUlo59t

— Kyle Grantham (@kylegrantham) February 5, 2015

#BrianWilliamsMemoriespic.twitter.com/MtNGJH1PsH

— Яob (@robx_d) February 5, 2015

#BrianWilliamsMisremembers If it were me, I'd start with something catchy like Four score and seven years ago ... pic.twitter.com/Lc4iqF0Jp2

— Яob (@robx_d) February 5, 2015

Brian Williams' tall tale of Iraq war becomes art meme. http://t.co/1XIEJOrOSr#BrianWilliamsMemoriespic.twitter.com/Lanxfd7o0X

— BU Art Gallery (@BUArtGallery) February 8, 2015

Brian breaking America. #BrianWilliamsMisrememberspic.twitter.com/AIm96Mn5xx

— Craig Wilson (@CWilso57) February 5, 2015

#BrianWilliamsMisremembers h/t Matthew Thomas pic.twitter.com/yNch3feqGT

— MLB Memes (@MLBMeme) February 8, 2015

#BrianWilliamsMisremembers the Battle of Thermopyle pic.twitter.com/KSZCC3uoo7

— [adult swim] (@adultswim) February 5, 2015

#BrianWilliamsMisremembers#BrianWilliamsWarStories Brian in the trenches defending the world. pic.twitter.com/Lk1sJaXDwF

— Яob (@robx_d) February 5, 2015

@robx_d@CifJamestownpic.twitter.com/3A8isZvLPZ

— Chuck Pfarrer (@ChuckPfarrer) February 6, 2015

#BrianWilliamsMisrememberspic.twitter.com/hh056rL48q

— Яob (@robx_d) February 6, 2015

Why, Brian, why?? pic.twitter.com/fCiLu7dItR

— StuffJournalistsLike (@JournalistsLike) February 8, 2015

pic.twitter.com/MWfBiod5j4

— Franklin Harris (@FranklinH3000) February 8, 2015

SEE ALSO: Brian Williams is leaving 'NBC Nightly News' for the next several days

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There is a dress that might be black and blue or white and gold. 

It started on this Tumblr page, where a user posted a photo of the dress with the caption, "guys please help me - is this dress white and gold, or blue and black? Me and my friends can't agree and we are freaking the f--k out."

Here's the dress:

And people on Twitter are completely freaking out whether this dress is blue and black or white and gold. (Note: some of the embedded tweets contain NSFW language.)

Taylor Swift sees black and blue. 

Mindy Kaling has also chimed in.

As has BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith.

 And New York Times tech reporter Mike Isaac.

And of course, Denny's.

Naturally, the debate surrounding the dress includes the Illuminati.

And the llamas that were loose in Arizona earlier Thursday.  

And amid all this, there might be an explanation here. 

Here's what the text in that embedded tweet says:

"Your eyes have retinas, the things that let you interpret color. There's rods, round things, and cones that stick out, which is what gives your eye a textured appearance in the colored part. The "cones" see color. The "rods" see shade, like black, white and grey. Cones only work when enough light passes through. So while I see the fabric as white, someone else may see it as blue because my cones aren't responding to the dim lighting. My rods see it as a shade (white).

There's three cones: small, medium and large. They are blue sensitive, green sensitive, and red sensitive.

As for the black bit (which I see as gold), it's called additive mixing. Blue, green and red are the main colors for additive mixing. This is where it gets really tricky. Subtractive mixing, such as with paint, means the more colors you add the murkier it gets until its black. ADDITIVE mixing, when you add the three colors the eyes see best, red, green and blue, (not to be confused with primary colors red, blue and yellow) it makes pure white.

—Blue and Black: In conclusion, your retina's cones are more high functioning, and this results in your eyes doing subtractive mixing.

—White and Gold: our eyes don't work well in dim light so our retinas rods see white, and this makes them less light sensitive, causing additive mixing, (that of green and red), to make gold."

And this user says he turned his phone's brightness from low to high and saw the colors switching. 

So give that a shot, maybe.

SEE ALSO: This dress looks white and gold to me, but Google says it's black and blue

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House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) just connected the debate over "The Dress" to the congressional impasse over funding the Department of Homeland Security.

In a tweet posted Friday, Boehner it's a "fact" that the viral dress photo is blue and black  — and not white and gold, as many people have claimed:

Republicans and Democrats in Congress haven't been able to agree on Homeland Security funding. GOP members of Congress, especially in the House, want the bill to undermine President Barack Obama's executive actions on immigration. Democrats view that as a non-starter.

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 Remember "The Dress?"

Well, now we have iPhone cases, two of them, so that you can share with your friends and the world which color you think — or thought — the dress was. 

The glaring problem is that this item will be released on March 27, a full month after people were losing their minds over the dress. 

And in a month, it seems unlikely that people are really going to care. Or at least, care enough to spend $16.99 to get two iPhone cases that will, in time, amount to little more than an ironic callback to an internet meme we all had some fun with for like three days. 

As my colleague Caroline Moss said, people may have bought these things the night of — like this man, who got a tattoo of the dress on his leg — the way you might buy pizza after a long night of drinking. 

But waiting a month to get the product that relates to an event? Well, then the event is over. 

(Remember the llamas?)

Now, as a number of media outlets found out, the traffic-based rewards from this story were very, very serious indeed. 

BuzzFeed's main post on the dress has garnered more than 38 million views. 

The Tumblr page that had the original dress photo got more than 73 million views. 

Business Insider's post has more than 4 million views.

Creating a meaningful commercial opportunity from this internet sensation, however, is significantly more challenging. 

Earlier on Tuesday, we put up a post noting that these cases were for sale.

And the immediate reaction on Twitter was one of fatigue and disgust.

It seems more likely, then, that people trying to sell things that are white and gold or black and blue will end up like these guys, scrambling for the business opportunity that follows from a bland conversation between a few bored millennials.  

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The company selling that now-famous dress that blew up on social media last week apparently found itself in the middle of a child labor investigation, according to a 2007 report by British newpaper, the Observer.

Roman Originals – which sells the internet's favorite black and blue dress for about $77, and is reportedly planning to produce a white and gold version – was apparently one of at least two UK-based retailers that contracted services through a supplier in India.

During a trip through what the paper called "a network of mud-bricked sweatshops" in a section of New Delhi, the Observer said in 2007 it "found dozens of children cramped together producing clothes for the UK high street. In one sweatshop, children were finishing a summer dress, now on sale for £16.99 (about $26) in 250 Select clothing stores across Britain."

The paper quoted one boy who implied he lived at the sweatshop: "'I want to work here. I have somewhere to sleep at night,' he says looking furtively behind him. 'The work is hard and my back hurts from crouching over the material but I am learning.'"

Roman Originals later said in a statement that it canceled its contract with the supplier immediately after learning about the accusations.

SEE ALSO: The two women behind the viral dress have a plan to turn it into something positive for girls

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Like Nyancat, "the cake is a lie," Tron Guy, and Doge, "trollface" is a bona fide piece of internet history.

And more than that: It's an incredible profit-generating machine for its creator.

Kotaku reports that the black-and-white cartoon face was originally drawn by 24-year-old Carlos Ramirez, and since 2008, he's made more than $100,000 off of his creation.

Ramirez drew the cartoon 7 years ago and posted it to anonymous imageboard 4chan, and it immediately exploded in popularity.

The internet is littered with millions of derivatives and copycats (just search Google for "trollface"), and has even been referenced in mainstream media like Adam Sandler movie posters and the comic Deadpool, Kotaku points out.

Such is the life of a meme: Sudden, meteoric growth, before slowly tailing off over a period of years. What sets Trollface apart is what Ramirez' mother encouraged him to do next — copyrighting the cartoon.

The accidental artist told Kotaku that at the peak of trollface's popularity, he was making "between $10,000 and $15,000 every few months." This would come from merchandising, licensing, and settlements over unauthorised reproductions of the meme. Overall, Ramirez has made made more than $100,000.

It's a rare success story for a meme, which often have far more unpleasant unintended consequences for their originators. Blake Boston, the unwitting star of the "Scumbag Steve" meme, was hit with a wave of online abuse after being painted as a "scumbag." And Ghyslain Raza, who is better known as "Star Wars kid,"was on the receiving end of years of bullying after a video of him "goofing around" with a fake lighsaber made its way online.

Here's a link to the original DeviantArt comic where it all began »

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The Russian government has opened up a new front in its control of the media, threatening this week to sue any sites that publish memes using celebrities’ names or faces.

The new law technically covers any site that tries to make fun of anyone in Russia. In some countries, that would be about half the internet.

But even in heavily censored Russia, there’s a significant amount of parody on the web, skewering everything from the president to the dog that looks frighteningly like the president.

The new declaration by the government’s media watchdog Roskomnadzor, issued through its VKontakte page, says it’s now illegal to “impersonate” a celebrity using his or her photo in a meme. In other words, in the near future we may be seeing broken links for dozens of brilliant parody accounts created by Russians.

The law came about because of an infamous Russian meme that offended the mother of the singer Valeri Syutkin — a man best described as Russia’s Burt Bacharach. The story starts back in 2005 when the Russian boy band Nambavan created a video for their song “Glamurnaya Diskoteka (Bei babu po yebalu),” which in English roughly translates to “Glamorous Discoteque (Smack the bitch up).” The song had an alternate name: BBPE, which is the Latin-letter acronym for “Smack the bitch up” in Russian.

Three years later, in 2008, a meme suddenly appeared on social media in which users typed “BBPE” over Syutkin’s portrait. The point of the meme was to (ironically) juxtapose the face of Syutkin, a crooner well-liked by women, with aggressively chauvinistic text.

Forum users, most on LiveJournal communities that have since been deleted, adopted the meme to troll “camwhores,” or women who ostentatiously livecam their naked bodies on the web. The image became so popular among meme hounds that the term “Syutkinism” began to show up as a euphemism for domestic violence.

Syutkin’s mother saw the meme when she was surfing the web and was deeply offended, the singer told the Russian publication Izvestia in December 2014. That same month, Roskomnadzor teamed up with him to sue Lurkmore, basically the Wikipedia of Russian memes, for propagating it. The courts dismissed his suit a few weeks later, saying vaguely that an “inadequate applicant” had addressed the court.

During the time the court was reviewing Syutkin’s complaint, Lurkmore’s editor Dmitri Khomak said to local media outlets that Lurkmore would not remove its page dedicated to the meme.

Last week, the court revisited the case and this time ruled that Lurkmore had to take the meme down. The court’s basis? The Russian law on personal privacy called “On personal facts.” That, in turn, led to Roskomnadzor’s VKontakte statement this week, including adding the new ban on offensive memes to the existing “On personal facts” law. Roskomnadzor’s spokesman Vadim Ampelonski added that the court had declared the BBPE meme illegal because it revealed personal facts about someone that were not used for the “public good.” Those tactics “discredit the honor, dignity and business reputations of public figures,” the VK statement says.

Under the new amendment to “On personal facts,” Roskomnadzor will demand that offensive material be removed, and if this doesn’t happen within the timeframe provided, Roskomnadzor says it will sue.

The law itself will not be implemented for another 30 days, but Roskomnadzor just gave itself the power to remove any memes it chooses. And all in the name of Russia’s Burt Bacharach.

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The Russian government this week announced that it is outlawing Internet memes that paint public figures in an unflattering light. Which raises a big question: There are tons of hit memes on the Russian Internet — which will the government’s media watchdog, Roskomnadzor, go after first?

President Vladimir Putin himself has been a popular target of meme-sters — Russians have posted hundreds of them mocking him. Here are a few that might now be in jeopardy:

When a photographer nabbed this magical moment of a hamster riding on top of a hummingbird, a genius did what anyone would do and added Putin, referencing the infamous photo of the president riding shirtless on a horse.

Translation: “With Mr. Putin it's merrier/we live twice as poor.” A pretty unsanitary spoof on Mr. Clean.

Translation: “Elections 2132. I will raise Russia from its knees.”

Translation: “Help Vova and Dima [Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s nicknames] put together the USSR.”

Translation: “Putler!”

In Russia, politics is often a battle of the “neo-Nazis.” Calling someone a Nazi is lately just a fancy way to say you disagree with them.

Translation: “I will never give you to anyone / my Russia.”

Translation: “Don’t worry, brother, when I grab America, you’ll get your Oscar.”

Translation: “In order to improve the security and stability, the Federation is going to be reorganized into the First Galactic Empire.”

Self-explanatory.

Also self-explanatory.

Note: Business Insider altered several of the translations.

SEE ALSO: Russia Slams 'The Interview' As 'Scandalous'

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A Russian court has instructed Roskomnadzor, the country's state-controlled Internet watchdog, to block 136 websites hosting “pornographic material” under the terms of international conventions signed in 1910 and 1923.

Vague language in the ruling, first reported by the newspaper Izvestia, means all Internet pornography could soon be illegal in Russia.

The ruling comes after a district attorney in Tartarstan's Apastovksy district cited the regulations put in place in the early 20th Century in Czarist Russia and then the USSR, respectively.

All of the websites on the list, including some of the most frequently visited in the world, must be blocked within the next three days, Global Voices Online reported.

The court banned the illegal distribution of pornography, though it failed to precisely define what “legal distribution” of pornography is, meaning millions of other Russian pornography websites could soon be knocked offline as well.

This restriction on Internet activity is just the latest example of Internet crackdowns in Russia since Vladimir Putin returned to the presidency in 2012. The Kremlin recently enacted a “law on bloggers” that forces popular online writers to register their home address with the government, offers a bounty for anyone able to crack the increasingly popular Tor anonymity software and is forcing Western technology companies to collect and provide information on Russian Internet users.

The porn prohibition also coincides with a law that prevents using a photo of a celebrity in a meme “when the image has nothing to do with the celebrity's personality.” Depending on how the law is enforced, it could mean photos of a shirtless Putin remain legal while prohibiting flattering images of opposition leaders.

SEE ALSO: Russia just banned celebrity memes

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There are two things you need to know about Success Kid, the Internet's most positive meme:

1. He's now 8 years old. (Time flies!)

2. His dad needs help.

Justin Griner, Success Kid's dad, was diagnosed with kidney disease in 2006 and experienced full kidney failure in 2009. He's been on dialysis ever since, and his family has now turned to the Internet for help.

From left: Justin Griner, Sam Griner (Success Kid), and Laney Griner

"One can only survive with no natural kidney function and using article kidney filtering for so long," Laney Griner tells the Daily Dot in an email. "His energy and mood are affected, he can no longer work, and he spends 12 hours a week in dialysis clinic. Having been on dialysis for this long greatly increases his risks of developing further complications. The only way to save his life is to get a transplant. There's no other way around that."

Justin's mother passed away from the same disease, which adds to the urgency, Laney explains.

Justin Griner and Sammy in 2007 Laney Griner

The costs of the dialysis and transplant are covered by Medicare, according to Laney, but it's the additional treatment that breaks the bank.

"There's a lot of medicines and anti-rejection drugs one must take for life, some costing thousands of dollars a month," says Laney. "Medicare pays for the first three months, and that's it." 

Justin also requires dental work before the surgery can be considered. And Laney says the costs associated with ensuring recipients' bodies accept a donated kidney are exorbitant.

As for where the kidney will come from, it's still up in the air. "We've had several friends and family offer and get tested to be donors, but no match so far," Laney says. "We certainly prefer a living donor because the prognosis seems to be much better. Getting on a list for a cadaver donor can take five years or more. We're certainly not opposed, but, obviously, the sooner the better for us all."

 

In a lot of ways, it's fitting to appeal to the very Internet that made Sammy famous. "We're the parents of 'Success Kid' for goodness sake," says Laney. "If anyone understands the power, the mass, and goodwill of the Internet, it's those of us lucky to experience it daily."

SEE ALSO: Get ready for a major boom in technology mergers

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As you might expect, the Internet handled the announcement that Hillary Clinton is running for President in 2016 the same way it handles…well, anything: It memed the hell out of it.

Sure, the news that the United States might be well on its way to finally seeing its long-awaited first woman president elicited a din of more conventionally phrased commentary about Clinton’s viability as a candidate—assuredly, the tweets, cable news roundtables, op-ed pieces, and Facebook statuses from your opinionated uncle will continue until the election next year, covering everything from Clinton’s potential as the possible Democratic nominee, to early notions about what a Clinton administration would or would not be like.

People, expectedly, have a great many thoughts about this announcement — and some of them can simply only be told through the New Great American Artform, the meme.

The onslaught of memes about Hillary Clinton’s campaign announcement should not be even remotely surprising. This, for better or worse, is what we do. It’s how we process, contextualize, and offer commentary on everything from embarrassingly heated debate over the color of a dress to the profound misery of a blizzard.

It’s how we, the collective People Of The Internet, both poke fun at how seriously we take frivolous issues (looking at you, Nationwide Super Bowl ad) and find relief in attaching a bit of levity to things that cause us legitimate pain. And when it comes to the biggest (even if least shocking) political news of the year, the meme machine was working overtime. There’s that innovative spirit America is known for. Proud of us, guys. So proud.

“@RobertMas21: I'm #Ready for @HillaryClintonpic.twitter.com/XpfWuX7bRm”@AWomanPresident @theonlyadult@ljoywilliams@Bipartisanism

— David Githinji (@DGshimba) April 12, 2015

Hells YES!!!! @HillaryClinton#Hillary2016pic.twitter.com/EGFbmeReer

— Dina Nina Martinez (@DinaMartinez) April 12, 2015

Y'all ready? #Hillary2016pic.twitter.com/PpY2vZC3X1

— M. T. Ceaser (@curatedbymike) April 12, 2015

#HillarysBigAnnouncement#MyBirthRight#Tcot Haha...love it! Thanks .@unsavoryagentspic.twitter.com/IRBoytdyZQ

— RockPrincess (@Rockprincess818) April 11, 2015

Hey @HillaryClinton FedEx did it first. pic.twitter.com/Bk4LdcUtIx

— Justin M. (@theMaup) April 12, 2015

@HillaryClinton for Queen of the U.S 👍👸 pic.twitter.com/49j8ok2rcq

— Michelle vd Broek (@mbroek_vd) April 12, 2015

Hillary Clinton be like... #Hillary2016#HillaryClintonpic.twitter.com/FlGf97ea6v

— Sabrina (@SNeverything) April 12, 2015

.@HillaryClinton announcing her candidacy like pic.twitter.com/McV9gUbrwb

— Dallas Doane (@dallasdoane) April 12, 2015

Hillary Clinton announces 2016 PRESIDENTIAL RUN!!! pic.twitter.com/fJQR1IejZG

— TheAlternativeSource (@TheAltSource) April 12, 2015

#WhyImNotVotingForHillary<-- Hey Patriarchy! Get #ReadyForHillary it's time to kiss your glass ceiling goodbye. :) pic.twitter.com/b4LPKtaeHO

— Laurel Davila, CPA (@laureldavilacpa) April 12, 2015

@HillaryClinton She belongs in the Whitehouse #SheBelongsInhttps://t.co/EBOTkiSDU4pic.twitter.com/mL5pPU6zZ9

— She Belongs In (@SheBelongsIn) April 12, 2015

@HillaryClinton Please use these for your campaign. #gay#GayMarriage#HillarysBigAnnouncement#HillaryClintonpic.twitter.com/JeYnd3Zc3X

— Taylor (@trans_ariel) April 12, 2015

So @HillaryClinton says this in her video announcing her presidential bid. This is more than OK. pic.twitter.com/uUR8IqbXLz

— May Ortega (@MayVOrtega) April 12, 2015

SEE ALSO: Here's what the cast of 'Game of Thrones' looks like in real life

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In 1997, John Silveira was asked to come up with fillers for unsold ad space in the magazine he was writing for. The clock was ticking, and he decided to just place two ads of his own. He needed to get the page filled up fast and get on with his day.

The first ad that Silveira placed was a personal ad he'd written in hopes of finding a girlfriend. For the second, he chose a fake "wanted" classified. In it he included the opening lines of a sci-fi novel he'd been working on.

Here's the ad:

It reads:

WANTED: Somebody to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. P.O. Box 322, Oakview, CA 93022. You'll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before.

Posting the ad in the magazine was hilarious, an inside joke Silveira had with himself. He figured no one would really notice it.

He was wrong.

The ad led to an explosive volume of letter responses, a series of internet memes with millions of views. It was the inspiration for a critically acclaimed indie movie in 2011, "Safety Not Guaranteed," starring comedian Aubrey Plaza, 14 years after the ad ran.

And it still won't die.

Letters from prison

We heard about the story of the "Safety Not Guaranteed" meme, as it's known, on "Reply All," a podcast produced by Gimlet Media about the internet.

You can listen to it here:

It inspired us to dig deeper into the layers of its popularity. Lynn Levy of "Radiolab" interviewed Silveira and found out about the unintentional consequences the ad had on his life.

So first, that magazine Silveira was working for. It was called Backwoods Home Magazine, a small Oregon publication specializing in "practical ideas for self-reliant living." It's still active today and publishes six issues a year. Its website is a tribute to '90s internet; there's an animated American flag and Comic Sans MS headers. It's surprisingly kept up to date with select material that the editorial team puts online.

It has a small but seemingly loyal readership. Topics Backwoods Home covers include weaponry and home canning. It has, Levy says, a "survivalist vibe." It's not People or US Weekly or Vogue, and it definitely does not have the audience of a renowned print publication.

It was the night before the September 1997 issue was to go to print when Silveira and his boss ran into the space issue in the advertising section. There was room for two ads and barely any time to fill them, so Silveira threw in his own — the "Safety Not Guaranteed" ad being one of them.

It was brief and intriguing, and Silveira expected a handful of funny responses to the P.O. Box he listed.

He got tons of replies, from curious to desperate to potentially crazy. Silveira read some of his favorite responses to Levy during their interview.

"How are we going? Why is it dangerous? Why do we need weapons? What kind of weapons should I bring?" one reply read.

Another asked if there would be toilet paper — or "do I have to bring my own?"— while another was penned by a bunch of felons writing from prison. "We would like to go back and not get caught."

The joke ad, the space-filler, became a weird beacon of hope for readers who had major problems or devastating histories. Silveira said the letters from prison were especially tough.

He told Levy:

Dozens, in prison, asked me to go back in time and talk them out of committing the crime that put them away. Others (and not a few) were from people who begged me to go back and save a loved one from a tragic death. Those letters were so heartbreaking I almost couldn't read them and I felt a certain amount of shame for not anticipating the false hope I placed in so many hearts.

This emotional can of worms was an unanticipated consequence of Silveira's flash decision to post the ad.

The responses went on for a few months, but eventually letters were no longer overflowing Silveira's mailbox. It seemed as if the madness was coming to an end.

But not so fast.

'You're the man now, dog!'

It’s tough to trace incidences of the "Safety Not Guaranteed" ad appearing between 1997 and the early 2000s, but we know it was read on NPR's "Car Talk" radio program on March 31, 2001, though we don't know what sparked the show's producers to choose to include a four-year-old meme in that particular installment.

Silveira claims it was featured in a "Tonight Show" monologue, but the internet has turned up no proof of that.

So now it's 2004, and a new internet sensation was gaining popularity: YTMND.com. The acronym stands for "You're The Man Now, Dog"— a quote from the movie "Finding Forrester."

In this bizarre moment from the movie, Sean Connery’s ornery character barks the line at his black protégé.

A man named Max Goldberg heard the quote in the movie’s first trailer, and "immediately recognized the power of the catchphrase." He purchased the domain and went to work.

The original page features a tiled photo of Sean Connery and WordArt-era text, with a sound loop of the ludicrous quote, and to this day the site remains home for a perfect formula for internet humor: static image + text + sound = unlimited possibility.

The rules seemed simple. Choose a photo, pair it with audio that enhances the level of weird humor, and give it a catchy URL.

So how does this involve "Safety Not Guaranteed"? OK, stay with us.

People loved"You're The Man Now, Dog." Remember that trope from a few years ago, "Shit ______ say"? It was kind of like that. With YTMND, other people began creating inspired spin-offs, hosted on their own sites, but with the same formulaic approach to get the same punch line. Goldberg began archiving all of the spin-off sites in another section of the original YTMND URL, giving all of the inspired meme-makers ultimate visibility on his already major platform.

So on October 27, 2005, user "AxlBonBach" created an inspired YTMND site titled "Safety Not Guaranteed." Using the URL www.timetraveler.ytmnd.com, he Photoshopped a serious-looking man with a mullet next to the ad, and chose "Push it to the Limit"— the popular montage song from "Scarface"— as the audio.

People loved it. "LMAO," one user wrote. "This is bound to be an instant classic."

While "Safety Not Guaranteed" as it appeared on YTMND was many folks' first time seeing the ad, some users criticized the post, claiming that it was plagiarized or simply old news (they had supposedly seen the ad on Jay Leno).

AxlBonBach paid no mind to the critics. He'd never claimed he created the ad itself, and the site continued to flood with fans of "Safety Not Guaranteed."

Don LaFontaine gets involved

The popular YTMND formula paid off for the classified ad. The added mullet-man and jazzed-up soundtrack had successfully spawned an army of replicas and iterations, bringing us to January 2006, when a user who went by "Scrow" claimed he had found a Civil War-era photo in his attic that looked eerily similar to the time-traveling mullet-man.

He made his own YTMND site to publicize his findings (pictured), which breathed new life into the nearly 10-year-old "Safety Not Guaranteed" classified ad.

From there, a user named "Blackadders2" emailed Don LaFontaine, the iconic voice actor who had recorded more than 5,000 film trailers, asking him to create a movie-trailer style reading of the ad.

LaFontaine came through, and once again another YTMND site was made featuring an iteration of "Safety Not Guaranteed," this time with a sloppily Photoshopped image of LaFontaine's face over the mullet photo and the newly recorded trailer as the audio sample.

YTMND users were stunned and impressed, many of them convinced the voice they were hearing was not LaFontaine's.

Blackadders2 replied to comments calmly, maintaining he had simply emailed the guy and hoped that he'd play along.

When LaFontaine died in September 2008, that particular YTMND page resurfaced and amassed tons of traffic. A new generation of internet users visiting the site after LaFontaine's death had never seen it, nor had they heard of the "Safety Not Guaranteed" meme.

Around that time a screenwriter named Derek Connolly saw the Don LaFontaine version of the "Safety Not Guaranteed" meme and was inspired to write a script for a movie. He, like most everyone who became a fan of the meme through YTMND, didn't know the ad's backstory. He told IndieWire he "immediately wondered if it was real."

Regardless, Connolly wrote the script for "Safety Not Guaranteed" in 2010, and a man named Colin Trevorrow was signed on to direct the film.

Neither had ever heard of John Silveira.

Silveira writes again

It's important to remember that throughout the 13 years the meme had taken on a life of its own, Silveira had stayed silent on his role as the creator. And he also didn't know anyone was writing a script based on the ad. So it seemed serendipitous when Silveira chose to write the story of the "Safety Not Guaranteed" ad as he knew it for Backwoods Home Magazine in 2010.

This was the first time he publicly declared he was the author of the ad.

Silveira, amused by the whole thing, explains the story.

He goes through the issue of the unfilled space and the responses he got. The only mention that YTMND and the "meme-ification" receive is this statement: "Some guy with a bad mullet has run the ad with his picture as if it's his."

From there, Trevorrow — who has already committed to directing the "Safety Not Guaranteed" movie and who has already lined up producers, financiers, and the actors — comes across Silveira's tell-all on Backwoods Home Magazine. It's unclear as to how. Unless Trevorrow is an avid reader of Backwoods Home Magazine, the idea that he happened to stumble upon the article is unlikely, so maybe they had alerts out for the phrase "Safety Not Guaranteed" or similar.

Regardless, Trevorrow is blown away. He needed to call Silveira, who, remember, has no idea this movie is in the works.

Trevorrow recalled that moment in a 2012 Wall Street Journal essay:

We could have simply changed the words in the original ad, moved a few sentences around to create a cheap knock-off of the real thing. But I wouldn’t do it. Not just because it would be a cynical and inauthentic move — but because the source material was flawless.

Trevorrow calls up Backwoods Home and is put through to Silveira. It wasn't long before the two of them met for a meal and got to know each other better.

Trevorrow described Silveira as very different from the "Mullet Man: [Silveira isn't] acid-washed jeans tucked into action hero boots, whittling something lethal with a hunting knife while telling me in no uncertain terms to go to hell."

Instead, he met a gray-bearded poet from Oregon with a soft voice.

The two bonded over their ideas of who the fictional man behind the ad would be.

Silveira, after all, had written it as part of a sci-fi novel. They both agreed, "He’d be a real man, one who has experienced true loss and pain. He’d be erratic, possibly brilliant, and full of contradictions—an outcast who hates being misunderstood while simultaneously not giving a damn. He’d be a survivalist and a poet. And, yes, he’d bring his own weapons."

The movie was made, and in 2012 it made its debut at Sundance Film Festival. At the premiere, Silveira was introduced and received a standing ovation from the crowd.

Loyal YTMND users remembered the life of the "Safety Not Guaranteed" meme before it became "Safety Not Guaranteed" the movie, and discussion was rampant online about this next-level meme installation, truly, the finale it deserved after so many of its iterations appeared on the internet over the past 15 years.

Before "Safety Not Guaranteed" the movie became mainstream (it lived on Netflix for a while), the trailer was posted to Reddit, where a majority of the comments made references to the meme's pre-Hollywood life: mullets, "Push it to the Limit," and YTMND.

The movie did all right. Roger Ebert gave it three and a half stars out of four. Trevorrow is now directing "Jurassic World," the highly anticipated movie that's expected to be a blockbuster this summer.

And as for Silveira? He still writes for Backwoods Home Magazine, publishing articles about climate change, the Second Amendment, and the benefits of homeschooling.

Silveira summed up the life of his ad, the tiny one used to fill some space one night in September 1997: "What lies in the future? ... for all the writing I've done, they are probably the only words I've written that will outlive me."

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As high school and college students finish up the school year, social media is full of worries, complaints and jokes revolving around final exams and projects.

And as you may have noticed, the most popular thing to complain about online by far is the group project.

Memes that convey the stress and frustration of working on a project with ambivalent classmates are all over Tumblr, Twitter and Instagram. Some of them use popular movies like "The Hangover" to get the point across.

The memes are passed around by students and don't seem to originate at a single source. Popular ones, such as the above "Hangover" shot, pop up on plenty of accounts after a search for "group project."

As anyone who's ever gone to school will remember, group projects usually devolve into a one-man show...

Things start to look bleak and the only place to vent safely is apparently online.

Many who post the online complaints question whether they're even getting anything out of group projects.

Posting screenshots of group members' awful behavior is also popular.

Jessica Lange makes an appearance in this meme.

The posts go through the entire cycle of group project emotions, including the confusion felt when group members are apparently banding against each other.

Bad excuses and attitude problems are also catalogued.

Some advocate stealing the show during the final presentation in order to show who did all the work.

Posts from people who happily cede responsibility to their "smarter" classmates are more rare, but they exist.

Finally, the happy gifs are rolled out after the project is done.

SEE ALSO: The 25 best public schools in the US

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Many flights come equipped with wifi, but with its latest safety video, Delta is bringing even more of the internet to the skies.

Featuring 23 different memes, the video provides an entertaining spin on the otherwise boring instructions for seat belts and emergency exits that precedes all flights. 

The video kicks off with some music from the "Keyboard Cat."

Next up, "Double Rainbow Guy" demonstrates the appropriate use of the overhead container. 

Here we see the "Annoying Orange" being safely stowed for takeoff. 

"Roomba Cat" glides down the aisles in his signature shark costume. 

Next, viewers experience the "Invisible Seat Prank," while learning about emergency exits. 

Seatbelt safety is brought to life by "The Evolution of Dance."

Next up is one of the "Slow Mo Guys" being hit in the face with jello. 

Once the seatbelt sign is is turned off, passengers are free to move about the cabin and "Do the Harlem Shake."

"Deltalina" and "The Screaming Goat" remind passengers that smoking is prohibited during the flight. 

Next, it's "Peanut Butter Jelly Time."

"Dramatic Chipmunk" points out the emergency exits on the plane. 

Next, oxygen masks are demonstrated by the grown up brothers from "Charlie Bit Me."

In the event of a water landing, keep a lookout for "Overly Attached Girlfriend."

 Delta throws it way back with the "Autodesk Dancing Baby," rocking a flotation device. 

Next, one of the critters from "Tiny Hamsters Eating Burritos" munches away on a tray table. 

Here we see "Nyan Cat" bouncing around the cabin tailed by his signature rainbow. 

"Doge" shows passengers where to the printed version of the sa fey information in the seat back pocket. 

Finally, the captain wishes passengers a enjoyable flight. 

There is an Easter egg at the end of the video where viewers can see different versions featuring even more memes, mixed together by none other than Tom Dickinson from "Will It Blend?"

You can watch the whole video here or below. 

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Beyoncé fans are having a field day with a new meme called "#BeyonceAlwaysOnBeat."

Fans have noticed that if you take any Beyoncé choreography and add in a new, non-Beyoncé song, she still remains perfectly on beat.

It all started when Kendall Gaines tweeted a video of the Queen B dancing perfectly to a song she does not actually sing.

From there, the mashup videos went totally viral. Watch some of the best below:

 
Fans are loving the hashtag:

 But Beyoncé isn't the only one who the trick works for:

SEE ALSO: Forbes declares Taylor Swift one of the world's most powerful women

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