If there was ever a show from the 2000s that was meme-able, it is How I Met Your Mother. There were so many running gags, funny moments, quotable quotes, and defining characters that fans have had a field day getting creative with shareable memes.

  • Even though it has been more than eight years since How I Met Your Mother concluded its run, the show remains a favorite among fans. Alongside those who are watching for the first time, picking it up on streaming services, die-hard fans won’t hesitate to check out episodes again and again. There are so many great moments that HIMYM memes online capture, too.

Some of the memes reference the show in general, while others offer commentary about pivotal situations or moments. But only a few are truly indicative of the show itself, fully encompassing what it was all about.

Slapsgiving

One of the defining aspects of How I Met Your Mother was the ongoing jokes that were revisited through the seasons and quotes by die-hard fans. One such joke was about Slapsgiving, an event created from a bet that remains one of the scenes that live rent-free in every fan’s head from How I Met Your Mother. After losing to Marshall, Barney had to endure a specified number of slaps to the face from him. The twist: he never knew when they might be coming. Thus, he was always on edge.

Using the classic format from Star Wars, this meme jokes about how Marshall might initially feel happy when he discovers it’s Thanksgiving, only to instantly remember the bet and fear for what’s to come.

They Were Quarantined

One of the more topical and timely memes, this one hilariously suggests that the only reason Ted’s two children stuck around to listen to Ted drone on about years of his life for nine seasons worth of stories was because they were all in quarantine.

It would make total sense. Each time the kids were shown in the opening or closing sequences, it was clear they were bored and dying to leave. However, dad also had them captivated, and they just wanted to get to the end of the story and find out the answer. The only way two teenagers would stick around that long, according to the meme, is if they were in quarantine and had nowhere else to go.

How I Met The Friends

Plenty of parallels have been drawn between How I Met Your Mother and Friends and this meme makes this crystal clear. It compares each character from the former to their counterpart character from the latter.

Ted is the nerd, similar to Ross, while Robin is the hot mess like Rachel was in the beginning. Barney and Joey are both the womanizers, Lily and Monica are the motherly types, and Marshall and Chandler are the goofy ones. The meme takes it a step further even outlining the similarities between relationships, flings, and who were college roommates with each other.

The Finale

The finale of How I Met Your Mother sadly goes down as one of the most hated series finales of all time, and one of the worst on television. Many people did not like the entire final season, nor the fact that the entire show built up the mother for so many seasons only to have her die in the end.

Nonetheless, despite the anger or disappointment in how it ended, there’s no denying that most die-hard fans shed a tear when they finally saw the resolution of that yellow umbrella. It became a symbol for fate, undying love, and the fact that some things are just meant to be.

Wait For It

One of the most iconic statements from the show was Barney Stinson’s “legen-wait for it-dary.” Fans repeat it everywhere and in a variety of situations to describe their self-professed confidence or how amazing a particular moment was.

Beyond that, the character of Barney was one of the best on the show, providing comic relief, constant hilarity, and the total opposite approach to dating from Ted’s. Interestingly, while Barney’s womanizing and insensitive behavior would never fly today, at the time, it was all in good fictional fun.

Musical Meetings

One of the defining items in the show was the French blue horn. When Robin expressed how much she liked it, Ted stole it for her. It was strange given that they had just met, but when he appeared at her apartment in the end, holding the horn, it was clear it was a symbol of their feelings for one another, which grew in many ways over the years.

This meme takes the popular Carly Rae Jepsen song “Call Me Maybe” and adjusts the lyrics to fit the situation. Indeed, it was a weird scenario that scared Robin off, alerted fans to the type of obsessive guy Ted was, and set the stage for the entire show to come.

Not Really About The Mom

It’s so true that, after nine seasons, fans realized that the story wasn’t about the mom after all. It was more so about Ted’s youth spent with his friends and the moments that shaped the person he eventually became. In many cases, it seemed to be more about Barney as well, given that he emerged as a fan-favorite character from the show. There are plenty of underrated Barney moments from How I Met Your Mother that aren’t talked about enough.

The meme pokes fun at how the show fooled viewers all along into thinking the mom was the important part of the story when she actually wasn’t. What’s more, Ted might not even have been the most pivotal character in it.

No Emotion

One of the most popular characters from the show was Barney, and while he provides lots of reasons not to like him, Neil Patrick Harris’ performance endeared fans to the character. Barney was a womanizer and emotionally closed off.

So much so, in fact, that he was the type of person to indeed do something like high-five a person to offer his condolences. It’s incredibly inappropriate, but that’s exactly who and what Barney was.

Challenge Accepted

A memorable line from the show, and one of the fan-favorite quotes from How I Met Your Mother, is Barney’s “challenge accepted.” It was usually given in response to someone implying that Barney would never be able to get the attention or win the affection of a particular woman.

The gist of the statement is that whoever says the line is ready to prove someone wrong. Barney accepted a lot of challenges throughout the show, particularly when it came to women.

What Barney Does

One of the running jokes on the show was that no one in the group knew what Barney actually did for a living. Whenever he was asked, he never clearly answered. He always wore a suit, was rarely ever seen coming or going to the office, and was very wealthy.

The meme jokes about this, suggesting that fans were more interested in finding out what type of job afforded Barney a swanky bachelor pad and personal driver than they were in discovering who the mother was.