A look back at the Weird Wide Web of 2008

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The young Web may not yet be a font of high culture, but when it comes to bringing the strangest human activities to the surface, it’s nonpareil. The ‘meme’ is a very webby concept: a unit of cultural information that gains notoriety and is often widely imitated. Think ‘Chocolate Rain’ (2007), lonelygirl15 (2006) or Numa Numa (2004). This year’s biggest memes ran the gamut from hilarious to upsetting to just plain bizarre.

Here’s a month-by-month rundown of the highlights.

— David Sarno