In May 2016, 37-year-old Texan Candace Payne filmed herself in the parking lot after purchasing a Star War’s Chewbacca mask. She put it on and instantly broke into uncontrollable laughter. Well, she laughed and the world laughed with her.

For some unknown reason, the award for catchiest song of 2016 goes to “Pen Pineapple Pen,” a spoof music video made by Japanese comedian Piko Taro. Everyone was thrown into a fruit loop trying to guess what the song was really about. So much so that it became one of the most watched videos on YouTube this year.

No one could’ve guessed just how popular Harambe, a 17-year-old Western lowland silverback gorilla would be after he was shot and killed when a child fell into his enclosure in late May 2016. The incident spawned lots of enduring memes online criticising the child’s parents for negligent care.

Michelle Obama proved once again why she is one of the coolest First Lady’s of the United States ever when she appeared for a carpool karaoke session on the Late, Late Show with James Corden. FLOTUS rapped, rocked and sang her way into our hearts with her rendition of Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” song and Missy Elliot’s “Get Ur Freak On” party anthem.

After the Republican National Convention in July, it was revealed that much of Melania Trump’s speech was plagiarised from Michelle Obama’s 2008 Democratic National Convention speech. At first, the Trump campaign claimed Melania wrote the speech herself but side by side comparisons brought out the truth.

If you haven’t seen the Mannequin Challenge in your social media feeds or on your TV screen, then where have you been hiding? In this viral video genre, groups of people gather and freeze themselves in place, often in elaborate poses and scenarios, as one camera-toting person walks through the scene to zoom in on the details. It’s goofy, it’s creative, it’s innocent fun. The fad even hit The Singapore Women’s Weekly team:

With nearly 200,000 views on YouTube, the video of Kristina Kuzmic eating ice cream while explaining why parents shouldn’t be friends with their kids clearly resonating with other like-minded adults in 2016. We love how she dumps wine in the ice cream too towards the end.

Pokémon launched their new app Pokémon Go, and it was instantly a viral sensation. Pokémon was already popular and well known for kids all the way up to 30-year-olds (who were the first generation of kids to play the game). However, the app launched the game to popularity never see before, with people of all ages playing and attempting to “catch” Pokémon.

In what was probably the most memorable celebrity feud of 2016, we saw Kanye and Kim Kardashian go up against songstress Taylor Swift. The details? Kanye released a song called Famous, which included a line about sleeping with Taylor, which then exploded into a “he said/she said” scenario.

As President Obama and his VP Joe Biden prepare to make way for President-elect Donald Trump and Vice-President-elect Mike Pence, memes featuring the two blew up online with people speculating what their conversations would be like. Most of them feature Biden plotting practical jokes on Trump, with Obama desperately trying to hold him back.