Though 2024 wasn’t a banner year in many respects, the internet can at least congratulate itself on yet another annual bumper crop of memes. And let’s not forget the role of art in making it happen!

In the search for an oddly relatable scene or sentiment to illustrate their incisive social and political commentary, meme-makers have been delving into the back catalogues of art history. Beloved old masterpieces have been repurposed for the modern eye and disseminated far and wide, reaching a new generation of art lovers.

As for other memes that took the internet (TikTok) by storm this year, from the craze for hot rodent men to adorable baby Moo Deng, the writers at Artnet News have had no problem finding an art historical lineage to explain their enduring appeal. As it turns out, Gen Z trends are all just recycled from yesteryear, or sometimes even ancient times.

Here’s our guide to the year’s best memes and their connection to art, however tangential it may be.

Hot Rodent Men

Portraits by Jan Gossaert of the Northern Renaissance. Left: Portrait of a Gentleman (c. 1530) Photo: Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images. Right: Portrait of a Man (1493-1532). Photo: Heritage Images via Getty Images.

When the internet went wild for gaunt and disheveled heartthrobs they dubbed “hot rodent men,” art historians realized they’d also swooned over a fair few ratty types in their time. After all, the Old Masters weren’t only obsessed with the idealized male form. Movements like Mannerism, Romanticism, and Impressionism revered everyday subjects with a slightly more idiosyncratic, rough-around-the-edges charm.

“It’s a turn away from that highly chiseled Brad Pitt–type of male ideal to something that is much more relatable,” said Sotheby’s specialist Daria Rose Foner. “That seems to have captivated the current imagination.” There wasn’t an Adonis in sight among our favorite art historical pin-ups.

Childless Cat Ladies

Detail of a miniature of a nun spinning thread, as her pet cat plays with the spindle; from the Maastricht Hours, the Netherlands (Liège), 1st quarter of the 14th century, Stowe MS 17, f. 34r. Collection of the British Library.

The trope of a single woman with only a cat for company has long delighted those who desperately fear female independence. It was this very misogynist lightning rod that vice president-elect J.D. Vance invoked in 2021 when he claimed the U.S. was run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable with their own lives and the choices that they’ve made so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.” Nearly in the same breath, he named Kamala Harris, stepmother to her husband’s two children. The video resurfaced and went viral this year once Vance was named Trump’s running mate against Harris.

Vance’s fears are so outdated they hark all the way back to the medieval era. In the olden days, religious sermonizers feared felines were associated with dark arts, witchcraft, and the devil. In one surviving manuscript from the early 14th century, a nun seems unperturbed by these absurdist male ideas. Instead, ye olde spinster contentedly dangles a spindle to amuse her cat.

Moo Deng

L: Peter Paul Rubens, The Hippopotamus and Crocodile Hunt (1616). Photo: Prisma Bildagentur/ Universal Images Group via Getty Images. R: Two-month-old pygmy hippo Moo Deng tries to bite her keeper’s knee at Khao Kheow Open Zoo. Photo: Carola Frentzen/ picture alliance via Getty Images.

For a few weeks in September, one sassy pygmy hippo had the whole world at her feet, or titchy trotters. Rare was the “fyp” that didn’t turn into a sacred site of worship for Miss Moo Deng, resident of the Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Thailand, to which her fans pilgrimaged in huge numbers. At the height of Moo Deng mania, she couldn’t so much as sneeze without sending crowds of onlookers into a frenzy of fawning excitement. Her most memed pastime, however, was biting the zookeeper’s knee.

As it turned out, artists have long been fascinated with hippos’ ferocious fangs. Moo Deng’s biting birthright was captured by Rubens in The Hippopotamus and Crocodile Hunt (1616), an imagined altercation on the banks of the Nile. Having never seen a hippo IRL, the Flemish Baroque painter modeled his fearsome protagonist on a taxidermied specimen.

“Mob Wife” Aesthetic

Alonso Sánchez Coello, Lady in a Fur Wrap (1577-1579). Collection of Pollok House, Glasgow.

At the start of the year, while it was still cold enough to sidle down the street in an oversized fur coat but sunny enough to do so in equally oversized sunglasses, internet users began obsessing over the “mob wife aesthetic.” According to TikTok, you don’t need to hook up with a gangster to get the look. It can be easily channeled by donning animal print, gold jewellery, heels, long nails, and big hair to create a grittier, more gaudy take on traditional glamor. Sounds like an offer we can’t refuse!

Of course, we need only look back at the portraits of yore to spot where this style may have evolved from. Plenty of female sitters over the centuries have embellished themselves with jewels, animal fur, sultry low-cut dresses, and thick faces of make-up.

Gen Z Marketing Scripts 

This year marked a major milestone in many a Gen Z marketing associate’s career as pretty much everyone was turning their social media accounts over to the youngest members on their team in a bid to stay relevant. That includes museums, where amiable Boomer staff members were forced to read Zoomer-generated Tiktok scripts promoting their collections.

Still, tenured art historians and aged curators the world over understood the assignment, channeled their main character energy, and readily discarded their dignity to join in on the viral trend. Delivering their lines with an exquisitely deadpan register, they ate and left no crumbs. We have no choice but to stan!

“Very Demure! Very Mindful!”

Over the summer, TikToker Jools Lebron shot to fame after dishing out some advice to the ladies on how to stay “demure,” “cutesy,” and “mindful” in the workplace. “I don’t look like a clown when I go to work,” she told the camera, flaunting a flawless full-face makeup look. The effect was declared “very considerate, very approachable, very demure,” in contrast to some women, who apparently turn up to work “looking like streetwalkers with a low-cut shirt.”

As the internet rushed to share their own daily demure moments, from home decor to life hacks, several museums spied an opportunity to show off their collections in a new light. As it turns out, the Old Masters also had a penchant for demure and considerate damsels, with not a clown in sight on these canvases.

Toulmouche’s The Reluctant Bride

The Reluctant Bride – “literally me when i’m right” -@adownif3rta

An honorable mention must go to August Toulmouche’s The Reluctant Bride (1866), which set the internet alight in late 2023 and well into 2024. The painting’s subject is a bride in her wedding gown who appears not to be too ecstatic about tying the knot despite gentle encouragement from her bridesmaid. Her expression, a mix of tired resignation and scarcely suppressed fury as her eyes look set to roll into the back of her head, still resonates with young women nearly two centuries later.

Meme-makers have paired the image with a range of captions, like “you always look stressed, calm down,” “love will come when you stop looking for it,” and “you’d be prettier if you smiled.”