We pulled English Wikipedia pageviews since 2016 for 46 songs best known as internet jokes, from the Rickroll to 'Jiggle Jiggle'. The biggest overall is Rickrolling (the meme itself) with 9.8M views, followed by Gangnam Style (5.8M) and Baby Shark (5.7M). To measure staying power we compared each song's past 12 months with its best 12-month run since 2016. Among the 27 songs with at least 1M lifetime views, Macarena, The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?), The Final Countdown and Sandstorm are still pulling 60–80% of their best year, so the joke is still landing. The one-season memes have faded hardest: PPAP (Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen), Tunak Tunak Tun and Man's Not Hot now get 16%, 10% and 8% of their best year.
Hall of fame (total views since 2016)
| # | Meme song | Views Jan 2016–Sep 2026 | Past 12 months | Peak month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rickrolling (the meme itself) | 9.8M | 466K | Oct 2024 |
| 2 | Gangnam Style | 5.8M | 433K | Jan 2017 |
| 3 | Baby Shark | 5.7M | 285K | Sep 2018 |
| 4 | Never Gonna Give You Up | 5.0M | 245K | Oct 2016 |
| 5 | Careless Whisper | 4.3M | 300K | Dec 2016 |
| 6 | Cotton-Eyed Joe | 4.3M | 232K | May 2021 |
| 7 | Rasputin | 3.3M | 360K | Apr 2021 |
| 8 | Barbie Girl | 3.0M | 175K | Jul 2023 |
| 9 | Blue (Da Ba Dee) | 2.9M | 212K | Nov 2022 |
| 10 | The Final Countdown | 2.8M | 248K | Jun 2023 |
| 11 | Wellerman | 2.7M | 203K | Mar 2021 |
| 12 | All Star | 2.6M | 152K | Sep 2023 |
| 13 | Macarena | 2.4M | 302K | Aug 2022 |
| 14 | Nyan Cat | 2.3M | 191K | Jan 2021 |
| 15 | Friday (Rebecca Black song) | 2.2M | 151K | Mar 2016 |
| 16 | The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?) | 2.1M | 202K | Nov 2019 |
| 17 | Trololo (Eduard Khil) | 1.9M | 109K | Sep 2017 |
| 18 | Axel F | 1.7M | 134K | Jul 2024 |
| 19 | PPAP (Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen) | 1.5M | 95K | Nov 2016 |
| 20 | Tunak Tunak Tun | 1.4M | 56K | Dec 2016 |
| 21 | Sandstorm | 1.2M | 119K | Mar 2024 |
| 22 | Chicken Dance | 1.1M | 77K | May 2016 |
| 23 | Caramelldansen | 1.1M | 121K | Apr 2020 |
| 24 | Ievan polkka | 1.1M | 83K | Nov 2020 |
| 25 | Dame Tu Cosita | 1.1M | 69K | Jul 2018 |
What it means
Viral formats reward speed and a sound people already know. Anyone with a joke that deserves a chorus can draft the rewrite with an AI parody song generator. Anyone who would rather write lines fans quote for the right reasons can start a first draft with a song lyrics generator.
Method
- English Wikipedia page views, all devices, human readers only (bots excluded), monthly per article, Jan 2016–Sep 2026. 'Past 12 months' = Oct 2025–Sep 2026.
- 'Best 12-month run' = highest rolling 12-month total since Jan 2016. Songs whose fame predates 2016 (e.g. 'Gangnam Style') are measured from 2016.
Cite and download
Free to use and cite with a link back to this page.
aisong.lol Research. (2026). The meme song hall of fame: Rickroll, Nyan Cat, 'Never Gonna Give You Up' and the songs that live on as jokes. aisong.lol. https://aisong.lol/research/the-meme-song-hall-of-fame-rickroll-nyan-cat-never-gonna-give-you-up-a
Use this data. Every table in this study as one spreadsheet-ready file.
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