The Top Five Facebook Memes: That Pickle Finally Beat Nickelback

Ah, memes! The fads of the internet. And Facebook, as the world's largest online social networking site, have spawned some of the most unforgettable and popular memes — the slap bracelets and pogs of cyberspace, if you will. Here are our five favorites. Will they disappear into cultural oblivion? Or can some of them, like pogs, stand the test of time?

If X Number of People Join This Group I Will Do This

This gag may have outlasted its usefulness: a Facebook search finds hundreds of people looking for 500,000 members so their girlfriends will marry them and only landing about fifteen. But be careful. You never know which ideas are just ridiculous enough to catch on, and you don't actually want end up with "FACEBOOK" tattooed across your neck or a kid named "Spiderman."

Can This Inanimate Object Get More Fans Than This Celebrity/Band

A wonderful form of pop-culture contempt: take a boring, dull inanimate object and see if it can get more fans than a famous asshole or group of assholes. Popular groups of this ilk include "Can This Sausage Roll Get More Fans Than Cheryl Cole?" (1.1 million fans), "Can This Onion Get More Fans Than Justin Beiber?" (86,000 fans) and "Can this Onion Ring Get More Fans Than Stephen Harper?" (180,000 fans. Stephen Harper, by the way, is Canada's Prime Minister.) The best group in this meme however, which we've written about before, is undoubtedly "Can This Pickle Get More Fans Than Nickleback? [sic]" which (triumph!) has surpassed Nickelback and reached over 1.5 million fans.

I Bet I Can Find X Number of People Who...
A format used often to support one side of the crucial political and cultural issues of our time, like whether gay people should be allowed to marry (2.1 million fans), or whether bags of chips should contain more chips (67,000 fans).

X vs. Y
Epic battles on Facebook include Coke vs. Pepsi, and Denmark vs. Sweden, and a tight race between California and New York. California is currently winning with 88,012 fans, while New York is right behind with 87,257 fans. The winning state will be paved with gold, while the other will be converted into a prison colony impervious to all but an eye-patched Kurt Russell.

People Who Are Tired of Facebook Memes

This is the realm of the meta-Facebookers. One such group, "Can This Apple Get More Fans Than-No Shut Up," has 298,000 members. Another, "If 1,000,000 people join this group absolutely nothing will happen," currently has 58,000. (At this rate, it could be years before absolutely nothing happens.) Yet another group, "Purpose Pending", features a completely blank page with a question mark as its picture. How many members? Over 200,000. These are Facebook's intellectuals, its cultural pioneers who are pushing the boundaries of the form and ensuring its long and healthy future.