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Thanks in large part to the political theater of the presidential election, news and memes were pretty much the same thing in 2012. The news made the web, the web made the memes, and the memes made the news. Out of the election cycle – and politics broadly – we got Binders Full of Women, Nate Silver Facts, and Texts From Hillary, while the Olympics gave us McKayla Is Not Impressed (also, honorable mention: Olympics or Gay Porn?).
Pop music also had a good year with both Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" and Psy's "Gangnam Style" blowing up Tumblr and YouTube. And let's not forget there were also guys with mohawks who worked at NASA and, naturally, cats.
But what memes ultimately proved the most entertaining – or at least the most impossible to escape? Here are the top 10 we think ruled the web in 2012.
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