The Great Meme Reset 2026 | What is the Great Meme Reset?

The Great Meme Reset 2026 is a viral TikTok trend where people are ditching AI brainrot and bringing back OG memes that were actually funny. Here’s what the Great Meme Reset is, when it starts, and what memes are making a comeback.

What is the Great Meme Reset 2026?

In 2026 People Are Bringing Back OG Memes and Leaving Brainrot Behind

Meme	The Great Meme Reset
Went Viral	October 2025
Origin	TikTok
Tldr	The Great Meme Reset is a trend where, in 2026, memes will reset as people ditch AI brainrot and bring back actually funny OG memes from the 2010s.
Skibidi Score	5🚽

People are tired of pretending everything online is funny just because it goes viral. Most of the memes that blow up now are either AI-generated or so shallow that they disappear in a week. Gen Alpha loves brainrot like “6 7” and say it nonstop, even though it has no real meaning. Compare that to the “what’s 9 plus 10” meme from the early 2010s, which was dumb but at least had a funny video behind it.

☞ Check out our 6 7 Merch ☜

The Great Meme Reset is about going back to memes that had some actual impact. OG memes weren’t just funny, they had a weird kind of meaning. Original vine videos and 2010s memes had stuck around because people genuinely liked them, not because the algorithm shoved them in everyone’s face.

The Great Meme Reset is about about getting rid of forced memes. According to Know Your Meme, “Forced Memes refer to any ‘meme’ that is artificially created and spread rather than organically spreading through word of mouth as a naturally created meme.” That’s most of what’s viral now, memes that feel manufactured, like someone decided in advance that this was going to be the next big thing, and people went along with it.

With AI in the mix, it’s even worse. Anyone can generate basically anything with no effort, and it gets millions of views whether it’s funny or not. The reset is a way of saying: if the meme isn’t that funny, it doesn’t deserve the hype.

OG Memes VS 2025 AI Brainrot Memes

Top 5 OG Memes
Ugandan Knuckles	What’s 9 + 10?	Cat Memes	Success Kid	Charlie Bit My Finger
Top 5 2025 Brainrot Memes
Italian Brainrot	6 7	Sora Geeked Memes	F Students Are Inventors	Bigfoot Vlogs

OG Memes Include Ugandan Knuckles, What’s 9 + 10, and Cat Memes

These OG memes dominated in the 2010s because they were actually funny and people stuck with them. Dog and cat memes were everywhere, especially the “I Can Has Cheezburger?” cat, which got so popular it spawned a whole meme website named after which is still going strong, at icanhas.cheezburger.com.

Then there was the “what’s 9 + 10?” meme. Someone asks the question, and everyone would yell “21” with zero hesitation. People used to shout that in school hallways and group chats nonstop. Ugandan Knuckles, based on the character from Sonic, took over VRChat with players running around in the red avatar yelling “Do you know da wae?” in weird fake accents. These memes still hit because they aren’t just AI slop. The 2010s OG memes actually resonated with people, which is why so many want them to come back.

2025 Brainrot Memes Include 6 7, Italian Brainrot, and the Sora “Geeked” Videos

2025 brainrot memes are what made people start asking for a reset. The “6 7” meme started as a song lyric but turned into a TikTok catchphrase Gen Alpha says in every comment section. Some people use it like they’re saying “real” or “valid,” but most just yell it at random for no reason because it’s a trend now.

Italian brainrot took things further with full-on AI characters yelling nonsense in mostly fake Italian. The memes have no meaning, just pure randomness with fake lore and creepy voices. It even spawned one of the most popular Roblox games of this year called Steal a Brainrot. And then there’s the “geeked” meme, which went from a slang word to something that shows up in a lot of Sora AI videos. AI is everywhere now, and it’s flooding the timeline with stuff that barely counts as comedy. It played a big part in the meme reset because anyone can make an AI meme now, and that’s killed the authenticity that memes had in the 2010s.

☞ Check out our Italian Brainrot Merch ☜

Which Era’s Memes Are Better

Some of the new memes are actually funny, especially to Gen Alpha. Brainrot stuff like “6 7” or Italian Brainrot characters yelling nonsense works because it’s so random, and that’s mostly what Gen Alpha humor is. It’s not trying to be deep, it’s just weird in a way that sticks. But older memes hit different. They weren’t pushed by an algorithm or made by AI, they spread because people genuinely found them funny. Memes like “what’s 9 plus 10” or the Cheezburger cat didn’t need to be explained, they just took off. In the end, it’s not really about which era is better. It just depends on what kind of humor you like.

Personally, I like both. The OG stuff will always be funny, but the brainrot is flooding my FYP right now, a lot of it is so cooked it ends up being lowkey funny.

Other “Great” Memes

The Great Lock In of 2025

The Great Lock In of 2025 is a trend where people are finally starting to getting things done. It’s about locking in during the last few months of the year and doing the stuff you’d usually put off. Fixing your sleep, hitting the gym, finishing projects, or just taking yourself seriously for once.

According to CalNewport.com, “this challenge asks people to spend the last four months of 2025 working on the types of personal improvement resolutions that they might otherwise defer until the New Year.” It caught on, and now other “The Great” memes are starting to pop up too.