Korean Memes H1 2026

2026 First Half Meme Recap — A Challenge Created by Two Elementary School Students Went Viral Even Among Idols

The most widespread meme in the first half of 2026 was not created by broadcasters or entertainment agencies. It began with a video uploaded by two 6th-grade elementary school students on January 5th.

The spread of memes is generally similar. There's a short original source, someone recreates it in their own way, and at some point, idols participate, changing its scale. The first half of the year was a period where this pattern was particularly clear.

1. First Half Memes at a Glance

2. Yoon-jung-ah Challenge — The Representative Meme of the First Half

Origin: On January 5, 2026, two 6th-grade elementary school students uploaded a video mimicking the Teacher Seo Yoon-jung character from comedian Jeong Yi-rang's YouTube skit 'Chopin Piano Academy'.

Structure: It's a call-and-response. One person calls out, "Yoon-jung-ah, Yoon-jung-ah," and the other responds, "What is it, Teacher?" It's short, easy to memorize, and only requires two people. It met all the conditions for a meme to spread.

Spread: It was widely embraced by the K-pop scene. With the participation of Red Velvet's Irene, Girls' Generation's Hyoyeon, and actress Go Youn-jung, it transitioned from a general buzzword to a playful activity across the entire entertainment industry.

What makes this meme interesting is that the original is a comedy skit, the main drivers of its spread are idols, and the initial source of its popularity is elementary school students. These three layers operated in different spheres.

3. Tree Challenge — The Representative Dance Challenge of the First Half

Song: 'Tree' by Car, the garden.

Moves: It's a dance where you stand like a tree and flail your arms around. There's no precise choreography, making it accessible to anyone.

Path: An AIMERS channel Short in early February 2026 became the original source, and it officially began to spread on YouTube Shorts and TikTok from late February.

This is a clear example of the conditions for a successful dance challenge. While idol dance challenges usually involve accurately performing difficult moves, the Tree Challenge goes the opposite way. The worse you dance, the funnier it gets. Memes spread fastest when the barrier to entry is close to zero.

4. Nallizabes

It's a phrase coined by Instagram creator @oh_sangchu (Oh Sang-chu), who declared it "2026 Buzzword Distribution" on Reels. It's a variation of "난리 났다" (It's a mess/chaos), and the original Reel was played over 2.13 million times.

This is a rare case where someone declared they would create a buzzword and actually made it popular. Most memes emerge unintentionally.

5. Other Mentioned Memes

Below are things that were talked about in the first half, but their primary evidence to support the scale of their spread is not as clear as the items above. Please consider them for reference.

• Jang Hang-jun-esque Thinking: Derived from film director Jang Hang-jun's attitude. It refers to a mindset of prioritizing one's own happiness without caring about others' opinions, and it was talked about from around February.
• "Even the pyramids get hateful comments": A meme translating low-star reviews of overseas landmarks. It gained attention after BTS RM shared it on social media. It's used to mean that no matter what you do, there will always be critics.
• Nyanyanyang: Originally an expression used in messengers and communities around 2023, it became popular again on X, Instagram, and brand accounts around March 2026.
• Good (Romantic Couple): A phrase derived from the content of comedians Kim Hae-jun and Na Bo-ram's sub-character 'Romantic Couple'.

6. K-pop Dance Challenges — "Most Covered Song" is Undeterminable

There are lists from media outlets summarizing K-pop challenges in the first half, but the rankings vary significantly by outlet. Some feature LE SSERAFIM's 'Smart' and TOMORROW X TOGETHER's 'Deja Vu', while others place songs by BABYMONSTER and KATSEYE at the top.

The reason is simple. A reliable single statistic that tallies "how many cover videos there are" does not exist. It varies by platform, by hashtag, and whether Shorts and long-form videos are counted together.

Therefore, this page does not definitively state "the most covered song of 2026." Instead, you can directly check how many actual cover videos have accumulated for each song on Dance Cover.

7. Why Memes Are Getting Shorter

Nowadays, choreography must include sections that work even when cut short. Choreography is designed so that even if you take 4-8 seconds from the chorus and only follow that part, the song is recognizable. This section is necessary for a challenge to work.

There are three conditions:

1. Be short — usually within 10 seconds.
2. Be easy — mainly upper body, minimal footwork.
3. Be suitable for front-facing filming — it must fit a vertical screen.

The explosion of the Tree Challenge and the fact that the Yoon-jung-ah Challenge only requires two people are based on the same principle. The survival of a meme is determined not by its completeness but by its replication cost.

8. See Also

• Trending challenges and viral images: Memes
• Videos where choreography is performed by different bodies: Dance Covers
• Camera following one person: Fancams
• Entire girl group stages: Girl Groups
• Teams that made a comeback in July: (G)I-DLE

9. Summary

The core meme of the first half of 2026 was the Yoon-jung-ah Challenge. It started with a video by two elementary school students on January 5th, spread with the participation of Irene, Hyoyeon, and Go Youn-jung, and its original source was comedian Jeong Yi-rang's YouTube skit. In terms of dance, the Tree Challenge, which involved flailing to Car, the garden's 'Tree', filled Shorts and TikTok from late February. Nallizabes is a rare case where a buzzword was declared and actually succeeded.

There's one commonality: all three are almost free to imitate. There's no need to be good, no equipment, and no practice required. Memes always spread in the direction of least resistance.