About
About Phylum Digital
Phylum Digital explains memes and slang in plain words, and shows every one of them as an animal. Human memes, animal versions. Plus a free meme maker so you can make your own.
Why “Phylum”?
A phylum is a branch of the animal kingdom. We sort memes into animal branches and show each one as an animal, because memes are funnier that way and easier to remember. That is the whole idea in one word.
It is also why the site looks like a jungle at night: that is where the animal kingdom lives. It is a look, not a story. Every page says what a word means in its first sentence.
What you get on every meme page
- What it means, in the first sentence, in plain English.
- Where it came from, with a “who made it” line: the person or community that actually made it, and who usually gets left out of the story. Most slang labelled “Gen Z” or “TikTok” was made by specific communities, often Black, queer, gaming or fandom communities, years earlier. We say so. Read why this matters →
- When it was first seen, with dates.
- How it spread, its variations, and whether it is still in use.
- Similar words and sources. We link every source we have checked is live.
The three ways in
- Ask: type a word or paste a message and get the meaning, the origin, and whether it is still in use.
- Memes, A to Z: every meme we have explained, grouped by type and by who made it.
- Make: a free meme maker. Pick one of our animal pictures, type your lines, download or share. Two-panels, labelled scenes, posters, parody quote cards, tier lists and collages. Everything runs in your browser. Nothing you make is uploaded.
How we work
- Sourced. Every meme page lists its sources. Where a claim rests on named reporting we say so.
- Honest about opinion. Whether a word is still in use (thriving, alive, fading, endangered, extinct) is our editorial read, updated by hand. It is not a measurement, and we label it that way.
- No fake numbers. If a number is on a page, it is either sourced or clearly part of a game.
- Careful with the ugly stuff. Where a meme’s source material is offensive, we describe it and never reproduce it. Where a word has a harmful edge, we say so plainly.
- Our pictures only. Every picture on this site is made by us: generated animals, no stock photos, no copyrighted images, no real people. The meme maker uses only these pictures, so every meme made here is made from our own images.
The hosts
Three original characters who live in the jungle. They turn up around the site and as stickers in the meme maker.
Who runs this
Phylum Digital is an independent creative studio and meme-culture project, signed by the studio rather than by individuals. It is unaffiliated with any platform, company or person named on the site. At the time of writing there is no advertising and no sponsorship.
Spotted an error? Write to phylumdigital@gmail.com with the page and, if you have one, a better source. We fix it and log the change.
Find us
We are @phylumdigital on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and X. For anything else, see the contact page.