Vintage meme of the I can haz cheeseburger era. 🍷

Slightly older, even: While Happy Cat was around earlier, (according to KYM, at least) its caption "I Can Has Cheezburger" (and the website named after it) didn't happen until 2007.

Meanwhile, (repost of my comment from a thread in this community last year):

The so-called lolrus was actually a southern elephant seal named Minazo. He was born in Uruguay, but spent most of his life in Japan where, measuring 4.5 meters long and weighing around two tons, he was said to be the largest seal in the country. Minazo died in October 2005 at the age of 11, and made his meme debut posthumously in June 2006 on YTMND. To this day Wikipedia considers him "one of the most famous southern elephant seals". Merzbow released a two-volume album (1, 2) in his memory.

RIP Minazo