Know Your Meme is a web series and database that documents Internet phenomena: viral videos, image macros, catchphrases, web celebs and more.

Sup Dawg. We accidently Time.com.

Your Guide to the Weird, Wild Web
By Dan Fletcher

For the uninitiated, the Web seems like some sort of a strange inside joke. Chuck Norris is more popular than he ever was offline. Rick Astley’s prone to popping up at random moments. And the cats. Always with the cats.

Never fear, Internet neophytes! A new website has your back. The folks at Rocketboom, themselves a one-time viral sensation, have come up with Know Your Meme, a handy guide to the endless stream of random Internet madness.

Even casual surfers will be familiar with some of the site’s entries. By now, Snakes on a Plane has long ago crashed and burned and the Dancing Baby probably has dancing kids of his own. But there’s new stuff too. For instance, the existential musings of Philosoraptor, and the broader appeal of Star Trek’s Jean-Luc Picard.

Still confused? The site has a team of “Internet scientists” whose instructional videos break down some of the more popular memes, like Keyboard Cat and Peanut Butter Jelly Time. Never mind the fact that the videos often run longer than the original meme (Keyboard Cat did his thing in 54 seconds, while it takes the “scientists” more than four minutes to break it down).

The old maxim used to be that if you had to explain a joke, it wasn’t funny. It’s still true — even with the explanation, we don’t get the appeal of something like, say, Robocop on a Unicorn. But for the rest of the Web’s inexplicable absurdities, Know Your Meme at least gives you a fighting chance of getting the gag.