It’s quite astonishing how many of us consume things without giving too much thought to where they have come from. To get very ‘we live in a society’ with it, millions of us buy sweatshop-produced fast fashion, consume meat straight off the production line of factory farm slaughterhouses, and use phones that contain materials mined in unthinkable conditions. 

On a less drastic scale, this also applies to memes. I mean, when you actually dig deep and find out where some popular formats come from, they can originate in the most unexpected and occasionally unpleasant of places. The best we can do is try and use the ones we come across for good, rather than evil. Sharing in a little lighthearted humor fits the bill here, or at least we at Memebase would like to think so. Being featured in the list below is only one stop on their multilayered journey.