Memes are the closest thing to an international humor culture that we have. In the 20th century, people would repeat jokes they saw on TV or in movies over and over, and you could say that was their version of memes. "You're killing me, Smalls." probably would've been classified as a meme if the internet was around back then, but that quote was so big, so unquestionably popular that it didn't need the internet to spread it around. Today, hundreds of thousands of people in middle America know who Charli XCX is because of her memes' pervasiveness. Before she became a meme, Charli was only relevant to a handful of coastal gay people, and now she's finally a household name. It's so funny how one previously little internet joke can snowball into being a part of mass culture, but that's the power and speed of the meme machine. If you want to ride memes for as long as they're funny, these are rearing to go.