The best queer memes that united the internet in 2024
2024 was choc full of memes. (Getty/Canva)
2024 was nothing short of chaotic, and with chaos, comes a cavalcade of iconic memes.
While there are too many to count, 2024 has had some of the best and queerest memes of the past few years, whether it’s Jools Lebron’s very demure, very mindful TikTok post or everything about the Wicked press tour.
Here are just a few of the best and queerest memes of 2024.
The Substance
Coralie Fargeat’s 2024 body horror extravaganza The Substance was many things – a beyond-reality critique of the idealism of youth, a nauseatingly captivating dissection Hollywood’s putrid underbelly, and an endless source of sustenance for queer memes.
The absurdist body horror featured in the film couldn’t help but seep into the cells of queer memes as the film’s release drew closer, with users sharing pictures of Gene Wilder next to Jeremy Allen White or Bob Dylan next to Timothee Chalamet, joking that they had taken The Substance.
I hate gay Halloween
Honestly, gay Halloween is a redundant phrase – Halloween is, after all, gay Christmas – but that didn’t stop memes commenting on ridiculous and outright camp costumes, dubbed “gay Halloween” from taking X/Twitter by storm.
“I hate gay Halloween,” one user wrote in an October tweet, “What do you mean you’re Chappell Roan and a passenger seat?”
Whether it’s people dressed as the lockers from Bottoms or the tennis ball from Challengers, the gay Halloween memes prove that the gays know how to do the spooky season right.
The Willy Wonka Immersive Experience
The Willy Wonka Immersive Experience was one of, if not the definitive, unifying experiences on social media this year. That image of the tired-looking Oompa Loompa next to a bargain-bin chemistry set in the middle of a barebones hall in Glasgow is so iconic it could have its own documentary (oh wait – it did.)
The experience, which used a mix of bogus AI images and false advertising to trick guests into spending £35 for a ticket, became a broadcasted train-wreck so massive you’d forgive a Victorian audience for running away from it.
And let’s not forget The Unknown – an evil chocolate maker who lives in the walls of the industrial warehouse and steals sweets from children. R.L Stine wishes he could make a character as bone-chilling as that.
Holding Space for Wicked
Never has a press tour been so choc-full of laughable, meme-worthy moments as Wicked‘s, whether it was stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande holding each other’s pinky fingers or that one picture where they look like a lesbian couple at an IVF consultation, but none can hope to top the holding space memes.
A viral clip from the press tour showed Erivo and Grande, both with their classic ‘we’re about to win the custody battle’ looks on their faces, speaking with journalist Tracey Gilchrist, who tells them that fans are “holding space” for the lyrics of the song Defying Gravity.
What follows is a bewildering reaction from Erivo, who places her hands on her chest and breathlessly exclaims: “I didn’t know that was happening,” to which Gilchrist replies saying she had “seen it” online. The entire exchange was so hilarious it spawned a cavalcade of memes.
Very Demure, Very Mindful
TikTok has been dominating with hilarious and viral memes over the past year, but none were as important and defining for the queers as Jools Lebron’s “very demure, very mindful” viral post in August.
The clip, which came about after Lebron was on her lunch break at her cashier job and was checking her makeup on her phone, was so significant for the queers and the gays that it made linguistic history.
According to Dictionary.com, there was a staggering 1,200 per cent increase in the word demure in less than a month, and the phrase quickly became an adopted saying for every LGBT in the building.
Now that is very mindful.
The Dune popcorn bucket
It’s a worm-shaped popcorn bucket from Dune that everyone thought looked like a fleshlight. The memes write themselves.
All those lookalikes
Just when we thought the chaos of 2024 was coming to an abrupt end (save for the 2024 presidential election), the internet decided to serve us one more jaw-droppingly iconic meme in the form of impromptu lookalike contests.
The first event came after YouTuber Anthony Po hosted a Timothee Chalamet lookalike contest in Washington Square Park on 27 October, the same day as a Donald Trump rally in New York.
What was meant to be a brief bit of fun to subvert a Republican rally exploded into a viral phenomenon in which people hosted lookalike contests for all kinda of celebrities including Paul Mescal, Jeremy Allen White, and Zendaya.
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