University of Granada Launches a 25-Year Digital Meme Archive

The University of Granada has created a digital archive of memes from the past 25 years. The project is called Humnet and is designed both for researchers and for anyone interested in internet culture.

The Humnet archive was created by Doina Repede, a lecturer in the Spanish Language Department at the University of Granada. The platform brings together different formats of humour, including memes, demotivators, and jokes from social media. Images, videos, and texts were collected from popular platforms such as X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, Tumblr, Bluesky, and YouTube.

In total, the database contains 1,012 examples from 20 countries, including Spain and Latin American countries. The largest share of memes comes from Spain (27.3%), followed by Mexico (14.6%). The most recent years are represented most heavily: most entries are dated 2025 and 2024, although earlier examples go back to 2004.

The database lets users search content by multiple parameters—type of material, format, platform, topic, country of origin, or year of publication. One distinctive feature of the project is a built-in internet-slang dictionary that explains terms and colloquial expressions found in memes.

Humnet is part of a broader academic initiative studying humour in Spanish. It also includes Humcor, a database of jokes from the past 125 years across different Spanish dialects, and Humtext, which features humorous texts dating back to 1495.

You can view the meme archive via this link.