A movie can’t just be a movie in 2019. It needs a familiar angle, if not a direct relation to existing intellectual property. It needs a backstory of gossip, casting what-if’s, and production updates that can be mined for clickbait well before and after its release. And if a movie plans on surviving in the minds of the mainstream past the hours of its initial press cycle, it needs the Internet to meme the shit out of it.
Director Todd Phillips’s standalone version of Joker, a pseudo-Scorsesean retelling of the iconic DC villain’s origins starring Joaquin Phoenix, has had all of that in spades. Not only is it a major financial success, now the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time, it was also thriving as a meme several months before it came out in the U.S.
For all the controversy surrounding the film in the immediate aftermath of its festival run, leading up to its October wide release — sprung from mounting concerns that the movie would inspire “incel” copycats and promote toxic masculinity, and further fueled by a Vanity Fair interview in which Phillips said he left comedy because it’s impossible to be funny in today’s “woke” culture — Joker may go down in history as the year’s most memed piece of entertainment.
You can always trust the Internet to breathe strange new life into a movie, TV show, or other pieces of filmed entertainment by untethering a line or image from its original context and repurposing it for the shared lolz. Take Pulp Fiction, which may end up being remembered as the source of Confused Travolta as much as it is for being Quentin Tarantino’s magnum opus. Or Baz Lehrman’s The Great Gatsby, which despite its initial success at the box office, has had virtually no legacy outside the enduring Leo toasting meme.
With one unexpectedly crazy news cycle and only a month in theatres under its belt, Joker has inspired a wealth of meme-ification almost instantaneously. Perhaps the early buzz around Joaquin Phoenix’s performance, combined with a slew of instantly memeable leaked set photos is to blame. Maybe the collective subconscious wanted to immortalize the Joker moment unfettered from the initial controversy and media backlash. Or perhaps a sea of memes is just the inevitable outcome of any big entertainment news story in 2019. In any case, almost all of the major trending Joker memes have been great.
So here are the 10 best and most memorable Joker memes currently taking over the Internet.
For Those Who Didn’t Catch the Reference
Pour one out for the poor bastard who decided to alert everyone to what might be one of the Joker’s most overt references to a past Joker — Heath Ledger’s Joker, that is — ‘cause it started a chain of memes that just gets funnier and funnier the longer it goes on.
Here’s the original, an earnest attempt to tip us all off to what might have been a passing reference to the iconic and equally memeable Christopher Nolan/Ledger Joker:
for those who didn’t catch the reference 🤡 #Joker pic.twitter.com/W4YeCCw3wX
— Kevin J. (@__greys) October 6, 2019
... then this happened:
For those who didn't catch the reference pic.twitter.com/3S1mTBCn4B
— Max Grossman (@GrossmanMax) October 10, 2019
For those who didn’t catch the reference pic.twitter.com/Q6tf7QvJqT
— Chris Feil (@chrisvfeil) October 9, 2019
for those who didn’t catch the reference pic.twitter.com/7GIgNAutFZ
— Flashy Jacky The Potatoe 𝑊𝑜𝑚𝑎𝑛 (@why_in_the_heck) October 19, 2019
Did you catch the reference? #Joker pic.twitter.com/5A9p67rwL6
— Childless Gambino (@IsThatTyFlee) October 11, 2019
The Dance of Freedom. The Death Bells. The Rising of the Joker.
the dance of freedom. the death bells. the rising of the joker.
one of the most magnificent, sublime, monumental, extraordinary scenes in cinema history pic.twitter.com/uczsga2AZQ
— macca gabriela (@sherlwatson) October 18, 2019
The two loudest camps to emerge from the immediate phenomenon of Joker takes are probably those who malign the film as a violent edge lord fantasy and those who have called it a dark modern masterpiece (If you ask me, neither of these camps are seeing the movie for what it is — a provocative, problematic, and possibly above-average comic book movie that also functions, however unintentionally, as a Trump-era exploitation film). One tweet from the latter camp, in which the user describes the film’s now-infamous stair dancing sequence as a “sublime” moment in “cinematic history,” has led to a string of parody memes that, for now, are still popping off like gangbusters.
the dance of freedom. the death bells. the rising of the joker.
one of the most magnificent, sublime, monumental, extraordinary scenes in cinema history pic.twitter.com/Q1PisvC8F2
— Conor Behan (@platinumjones) October 22, 2019
the dance of freedom. the death bells. the rising of the joker.
one of the most magnificent, sublime, monumental, extraordinary scenes in cinema history pic.twitter.com/CvAUXP7TxQ
— MikeBeast (@MikeVanderbilt) October 22, 2019
the dance of freedom. the death bells. the rising of the joker.
one of the most magnificent, sublime, monumental, extraordinary scenes in cinema history pic.twitter.com/QOpUcOj0AA
— Red Gaia Eraser (@Shinken_Oh) October 21, 2019
the dance of freedom. the death bells. the rising of the joker.
one of the most magnificent, sublime, monumental, extraordinary scenes in cinema history pic.twitter.com/DuZcJKtpiT
— Richard Chambers (@newschambers) October 22, 2019
the dance of freedom. the death bells. the rising of the joker.
one of the most magnificent, sublime, monumental, extraordinary scenes in cinema history pic.twitter.com/aHTtM2idpp
— BenDavid Grabinski (@bdgrabinski) October 23, 2019
the dance of freedom. the death bells. the rising of the joker.
one of the most magnificent, sublime, monumental, extraordinary scenes in cinema history pic.twitter.com/najW9pyf4b
— (((Kobayashi Saru)))🖖🏻 (@3illSweet) October 22, 2019
Dancing Queen
Dancing Queen – ABBA #Joker #JokerFilm #JokerMovie pic.twitter.com/odoWW8SUAz
— Joker Dances To (@Joker_Dances_To) October 9, 2019
Speaking of that stair dancing scene, the film’s provocative choice of soundtrack for the sequence — “Rock and Roll Part 2,” a jock jam by convicted pedophile Gary Glitter — also got some flack, as you might imagine. So somebody decided to make light of the situation by subbing “Rock and Roll Part 2” out for another song ... and another, and another. Results vary, but so far, the joke hasn’t gotten old.
Waiting For Tonight – Jennifer Lopez #JokerFilm #JokerMovie #Joker pic.twitter.com/9rPK6JE0nn
— Joker Dances To (@Joker_Dances_To) October 15, 2019
Gettin' Jiggy Wit It – Will Smith #JokerFilm #JokerMovie #Joker pic.twitter.com/8fcscCacA3
— Joker Dances To (@Joker_Dances_To) October 15, 2019
What Dreams Are Made Of – Hilary Duff #JokerMovie #JokerFilm #Joker pic.twitter.com/FOmO5V6Ob8
— Joker Dances To (@Joker_Dances_To) October 9, 2019
Running Joker
One of the earliest memes to emerge from the Joker phenomenon, the Running Joker derived from an early set photo released to the public back in November 2018, depicting Joaquin Phoenix running in full Joker attire while shooting a chase scene for the movie. There was something about Phoenix’s now-universally acclaimed take on the character that seemed to warrant immortalization on the Internet literally as it was being created:
leaving PetSmart after they chased me out for teaching all the parrots how to say the N word 🃏 pic.twitter.com/tzDFv5fQTK
— Dog field (@dogfieId) October 6, 2019
Mini-Joker
Boy, that goddamn scene of Joker dancing down some stairs was destined for memery from the beginning. Following the release of a few promotional photos for Joker back in July, Twitter user @wikiesqueletos posted an edited version of a dancing, comically small Joker, which led to a series of memes utilizing mini-joker to mock the small victories of a day in the life of a child or family pet:
Its time for pizza from memes
Guess again, pupper
Posted by Thicc Like A Memeshake on Friday, October 11, 2019
That last one, which offers a variation on the meme by scaling an elongated or regular-sized Joker next to Mini-Joker, is part of its own subset of popular Mini-Joker memes:
Me and my son on our way to annoy my wife pic.twitter.com/btFOr8O0aN
— Habibi (@stay_guessin) October 23, 2019
Thanks dad from dankmemes
Mini-Joker even managed to bring the equally popular Mini-Keanu into the mix:
He’s just a kid from dankmemes
Joker Dancing in Random Locations
As the A.V. Club recently pointed out, it’s kind of a relief that the world seems to have adopted Joker’s triumphant dance down the stairs as meme fodder rather than a celebration of a toxic ideology, the “fullest expression” of which being an entire Twitter account dedicated to photoshopping Phoenix’s dancing Joker into hilarious locations:
Joker dancing in the White Petal Field (Metal Gear Solid 3) pic.twitter.com/FWZNeqq6qa
— Joker Dancing in Random Locations (@JokerIsAnywhere) October 21, 2019
Joker dancing in the Backrooms pic.twitter.com/IKux2AnWpm
— Joker Dancing in Random Locations (@JokerIsAnywhere) October 21, 2019
Joker dancing in bed pic.twitter.com/s3Z9ovNe5n
— Joker Dancing in Random Locations (@JokerIsAnywhere) October 20, 2019
Joker dancing in Raiders of The Lost Ark pic.twitter.com/VWc7Ev3ptJ
— Joker Dancing in Random Locations (@JokerIsAnywhere) October 22, 2019
Joker dancing at Hyrule Castle pic.twitter.com/ACjs46smAT
— Joker Dancing in Random Locations (@JokerIsAnywhere) October 22, 2019
That last one kills me. He’s so small.
Joker and Peter Parker Dancing
Alright, we’re almost done with the dancing memes, I swear. But you can’t talk about dancing Joker memes without talking about the miracle that is Joker and Peter Parker dancing. ‘Cause I guess one shitty, moody fucking white guy from a comic book just wasn’t enough, the meme gods saw fit to bring the insufferable emo-Peter Parker from Spider-Man 3 into the mix.
The greatest crossover in History. pic.twitter.com/93urb7pMp9
— rahalarts (@rahalarts) August 31, 2019
the image of them both dancing makes me happy from dankmemes
About time from dankmemes
Joker Gets Hit by a Car
The first meme to take advantage of the Joker scene where the titular character gets nailed by a taxi cab came from the /r/Animemes subreddit:
It didn’t take long for the simple two-panel meme to cover less-niche subjects and permeate the Joker meme-iverse.
Feels yeet man from memes
Joker Laughing Like Seth Rogen (and Others)
Equal parts hilarious and shockingly uncanny, this meme takes an already unsettling clip of Joker faking an awkward-as-shit laugh and infuses it with the American treasure that is Seth Rogen’s stoner chuckle.
the joker but he laughs like seth rogen pic.twitter.com/KbvMt5Ij7b
— freddy kroger (@ryanheezy) October 8, 2019
In its infinite pooled wisdom (or idiocy, take your pick), the Twittersphere has brought a whole series of famously whack laughs into the Joker-meme fray:
The #Joker but he Laughs like Kawhi Leonard pic.twitter.com/PfNqg1MPEI
— ComicPort (@ComicPort24) October 22, 2019
the joker but he laughs like nicki minaj pic.twitter.com/Pr5A4ORcZU
— gina (@chalameche) October 8, 2019
Joker Dancing for Cialis
Sorry, it’s another dancing one, but I couldn’t let this list go without raising awareness of this brilliantly executed work, which really speaks for itself. Enjoy!
We turned the Joker stair-dancing scene into a commercial for boner pills. You’re welcome. pic.twitter.com/DTmZoxuRwc
— formemenotyou (@formemenotyou) October 22, 2019
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