Ten Best African Memes of all Time
 |
In his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins coined the term “meme.” He used it to describe pieces of idea that are virally copied and imitated. Melodies, catchphrases, and abstract beliefs are all examples. Almost two decades later the web birthed the internet memes. Coined in 1994 by American attorney Mike Godwin, these newer pieces of culture are a group of common digital bits that are conscious of each other and are virally spread via the internet. Consistently humorous, they include posts, hashtags, images, GIFs, videos, audios, etc.
For every global culture, there is bound to be a regional take specific to a place. Africans have produced their own brand of mimetic culture by which they express their everyday experiences, store up their ideologies, and catch fun. But then, the top results for a cursory google search on African memes are those about Africans by non-Africans. Conceiving a meme as a batch of similar web bits, these, as a riposte, are the ten best memes of Africans, by Africans, for Africans.
1. Makmende Memes
Sheng (Swahili/English-based argot) for “a hero,” Makmende is a Kenyan childhood folk hero. He could do the improbable and the impossible. Any child who feels themself the most at the playground is thus asked if they were Makmende. In 2010, Just A Band gave this childhood fantasy a face. In their viral video for the song “Ha-He,” Kevin Maina acts as Makmende, and does the superhero stuff. Reacting to this, fans spilled into the internet in swelling surges, birthing, as a result, Kenya's first digital meme. Consequently, Makende becomes one of first African digital folk. He also embodies the country's early phase of digital mimetic culture.
2. The Serious Schoolkid Meme
In 2015, Solomon Adufah visited Ghana through his initiative: Homeland Ghana. The Ghana-born, US-based artist wanted to teach toddlers in rural areas free creative classes. Cameraman Carlos Cortes, of Chicago, who came to make a documentary on Adufah, took several photos of the latter teaching pupils. Jake's was one of them. The then-four-year-old looks serious in the picture. Soon after Solomon shared this picture on IG, Jake went viral, creating a mimetic ripple across Africa. His are easily one of the most shared African memes. Its virality apart, the meme was used to source educational funds in Jake's small village.
3. Aki and Pawpaw Memes
Chinedu Ikedieze and Osita Iheme are known as Aki and Pawpaw. The Nigerian comic duo played those characters in the film Aki Na Nwa (2002), and the names stuck. About two decades after, they have become meme stars. One of Africa’s most mutated single meme, images of Aki and Pawpaw, called the African Meme Kings, provide a big chunk of Nigerians’ WhatsApp stickers, Instagram slides, and X GIFs. They're perhaps Africa's biggest mimetic export.
Pawpaw
Aki
Aki and Pawpaw
4. Mother Memes
These are a crop of Egyptian memes featuring mother characters, who's sometimes called “El Hagga.” Whether a cat or a cartoon, a kid or a grownup, a male or an unveiled female, the (make-believe) mother figure is often veiled. Though light-hearted, these memes often exhibit married women's personalities and familial roles. One of Egypt's most unique, they can be found on Instagram and X.
A mother tells her son she's unplugged the router so he can focus during his online class.
A mother holds her son hostage so she can call his aunt.
5. Covid-19 Memes
By early 2020 when the pandemic hit, the continent coped with jokes. Zimbabweans uploaded 21-day COVID-19 lockdown WhatsApp stickers and traditional treatment Facebook memes. Malawians posted giggly airlines and passport stamps Facebook memes. Egyptians shared coronavirus-mocking memes. Moroccans circulated Facebook memes that continued the public debates about the epidemic. Nigerians distributed WhatsApp stickers predicated on Biblical metaphors. South Africans spread psychologically-reliving Twitter memes. The memes are largely harmless. But given that Covid-19 was first reported in China, some are sinophobic.
6. Occupy Nigeria Memes
On January 1, 2015, the president Goodluck Jonathan-led Nigerian administration removed the fuel subsidy. The citizenry opposed this. Consequently, one of the most successful protests in the country’s history soon erupted. The movement was tagged Occupy Nigeria Group. Beside the physical mass strike actions and protests, the movement spilled into the country's social media space. The result is one of the most influential African memes. Via Facebook, X, 2go, and Blackberry, these bits of humorous socio-political commentary enhanced the anti-subsidy removal protests.
7. Malawian/Foreign Memes
Scholars have opined that, beside stand-up comedy, internet memes are one of the most popular forms of humour in Malawi. One meme, the Malawian/Foreign meme, generally pairs a foreign, often Western thing or act against the Malawian counterpart. One of the most self-critical memes on the continent, some come across as self-derogatory. They have thus been argued to undervalue and underrate all things Malawian.
8. Mugabe Memes
Since his fall at the Harare airport in 2015, the then 91-year-old president Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has become one of the continent’s biggest meme characters. Of the Mugabe-based memes, the Mugabe Fall memes and the Mugabe Quote memes perhaps constitute the largest collection. The former involves the picture of his fall, which burst into memes immediately after the incident. Many of these implicitly reduce Mugabe, “the young old man,” deified and fetishized, to human status, feeble and fallible, sometimes portraying him as a footballer, dancer, surfer, etc. The latter feature quotes, real or fake, superimposed over the picture of the former president.
9. Julius Malema Memes
Julius Malema is a South African politician and leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters. Besides his political activities of recent, he has become a meme star. His image macros are often his picture tagged with some text. Other times, a Malema meme might make use of a different image containing a text that mentions his name. With over a billion TikTok video tags, his are one of the most famous South African memes.
10. Kabila Memes
Joseph Kabila was the president of the Democratic Republic of Congo from 2011 to 2019. On par with the multitudinous self-mockery lifestyle memes and the Chinese (sometime sinophobic) memes in the country, Kabila memes are one of the most popular in DRC. Most of them poke fun at the former president and exhibit anti-government pose.
