Yettel’s latest campaign explores how people actually use the internet in their everyday lives. As part of the campaign, the mobile operator commissioned a nationwide representative(1) survey on one of the online world’s most common, yet hardest-to-define phenomena: memes. The findings show that eight in ten Hungarians regularly encounter memes(2) in their online conversations. This may be because more than half of respondents say that an emoji, GIF or meme can sometimes express their feelings much better than words.
More than half of respondents see memes as an integral part of internet culture, while two-thirds believe that some memes can only be understood by specific communities. Nevertheless, most agree that memes based on inside jokes can help bring members of a community closer together. According to media researcher Dr Ádám Guld, just as shared conversations and stories once helped strengthen social bonds, today a well-timed joke or meme can convey the same message: “We’re part of the same team.” That’s why memes are much more than simple internet jokes – they continually reinforce a shared identity and sense of belonging within digital communities.
When I think of you, I send you a meme
Seven in ten Hungarians send memes to friends and acquaintances at least once a week. The most common reason is to make someone laugh (56%), followed by reacting to a situation (36%), sharing an inside joke (36%) or simply because they liked the meme (33%). But it also depends on who the recipient is. Six in ten respondents say they know someone they would never send a meme to because they wouldn’t understand it, while 28% think it’s downright embarrassing when someone shares overused memes.
“Memes are essentially a form of cultural shorthand. In just a few seconds, they can evoke shared experiences, media references or inside jokes that would otherwise take much longer to explain. The more people share the same digital environment, the more effectively this common language works. However, understanding digital culture also requires familiarity with the cultural references that memes are built on. Increasingly, the ability to understand memes is becoming a form of digital cultural competence,” added Dr Ádám Guld.
Is it rude not to respond? Etiquette hasn’t disappeared – it has simply evolved...
Just as it used to be common courtesy to respond to a phone call or an email, younger generations now see a meme as a social gesture that calls for a response. The survey found that four in ten Hungarians believe it’s only polite to react to a meme they’ve received, whether they like it or not. According to Dr Ádám Guld, this shows that etiquette hasn’t disappeared in the digital world – it has simply evolved. “What this survey really documents is the emergence of a new form of online etiquette, where not only words but also emojis, GIFs and memes have their own social norms,” he said.
When they like a meme they’ve received, most people react with an emoji (59%), while one in three replies with a text message and one in four responds by sending another meme. Compared with the overall average, 18-35-year-olds are more likely to return the gesture with another meme, save it for later or add a comment. By contrast, 15% of people aged 54 and over don’t respond at all – an interesting finding given that most younger respondents consider not reacting to a meme downright rude.
So what happens when people don’t like the content they receive? Four in ten simply ignore it, although younger people are less likely to do so – 42% of them prefer to react with an emoji instead. Open rejection is rare, however: just 15% of respondents would be honest enough to say that they didn’t like the meme.
The sender also plays a major role in shaping the reaction (41%), while not understanding the meme is another key factor (45%). One in four respondents has, at some point, interpreted a meme differently from the person who sent it. In these situations, most people ask what it means, look it up online, or simply ignore it. Interestingly, one in ten respondents still pretends to understand it. Among 18-35-year-olds, it is particularly common to look up the background information online – or simply play along as if they understand it.
The recipe for a good meme
So what makes a meme good? For most people, the answer is simple: it has to be funny. Relevance comes next, followed by creativity and how relatable it is. Whether a meme is original or surprising, or has the potential to become an “evergreen”, matters much less. Still, four in ten people believe that most memes are only interesting for a short time.
The survey also looked at the meaning of specific memes to find out how familiar Hungarians are with them. Of the memes featured in the survey, the most widely recognized was the more than ten-year-old “Side Eyeing Chloe” meme, known by 73% of respondents. Of those familiar with it, 70% find it funny, even though only 26% still consider it relevant today. Another popular choice was the Hungarian classic “scooter vs. rabbit”, which has also made its way around the world. Some 66% of respondents know the meme, 70% find it entertaining, and half believe it is still relevant today. By contrast, even though the World Cup had only recently ended, just 41% were familiar with the “Marc Cucurella cat” meme, and only 37% considered it timely.
“Side Eyeing Chloe and the ‘scooter vs. rabbit’ meme have become cultural references in their own right: they still work even when users no longer remember the original story behind them. Memes tied to specific events or news, on the other hand, lose their relevance much faster, as the shared knowledge that gave rise to them fades away. A good meme, then, isn’t simply funny – it can also be creatively reused. When a community can create new meanings from the same image years later, a meme becomes more than just internet content: it becomes part of the shared language of digital culture,” explains Dr Ádám Guld.
| About the survey: The memes included in the survey were selected with the help of experts. The aim was to include examples that best represent the diversity of Hungary’s online meme culture. The selection took into account several factors, including how well-known and relevant each meme is, when it first appeared, and the extent to which it has become a cultural reference familiar to wider online communities. The survey deliberately excluded political memes, focusing exclusively on memes that are part of everyday online communication and are unrelated to politics. The memes were used solely to identify the subject of the survey. |
(1)The survey was conducted between 24 July and 27 July 2026, on a sample of 1,027 people representative of Hungary’s Internet-using population aged 18-69 by gender, age, type of settlement and region.
(2)For the purposes of this survey, a meme is defined as any image, video or other piece of online content that users share with one another to convey a humorous, ironic or cultural message.