How simple or how elaborate a meme maker chooses to make a meme is entirely up to them. Ultimately, most of these images quite clearly get the message across with a minimum of bells and whistles. We could all just return to rage comics and advice animals if we really wanted to, and everybody would still get the same message.

However, the realms of internet picture-related creativity expand so much further than the way we communicated online in 2009. This isn’t to say that vintage memes don’t have their place in the immortal meme canon, but we have so many other ways to express ourselves now. It’s a privilege that might well be limited to the time period we currently exist in, so don’t take it for granted. These memes are all mixed up and in no particular order, and that’s exactly the way that they were meant to be appreciated.