"Shoes" — Kelly

"Shoes" was the work of Liam Kyle Sullivan, a comedian who put on a long blond wig and rectangular glasses to become Kelly — a monotone teenage girl with a demonic baritone — and sent her on a shopping spree in a satirical electroclash music video. He posted it to his own website in early 2006 and to the brand-new YouTube that May, where it became one of the platform's first breakout viral hits; the full version he re-uploaded to his channel in February 2007 has since climbed past 70 million views. The joke landed everywhere at once: the flat delivery, the sudden growled "these shoes rule / these shoes suck," and a hook made of a single word repeated until it stopped meaning anything.

Sullivan was an early proof that one person with a camera could mint a national catchphrase. "Shoes" won the People's Choice Award for user-generated video in 2008 — a mainstream trophy for a wig-and-camcorder sketch — and Kelly returned in follow-ups like "Let Me Borrow That Top" while Sullivan's "Muffins" spawned quotes of its own. In 2008 he appeared alongside fellow early-internet royalty in Weezer's "Pork and Beans" video, the era's official class photo of viral fame.

For 2000s teenagers, "Shoes" is a password: say "betch" in the right tone and everyone within earshot who owned an iPod nano finishes the quote. It's the purest artifact of the moment YouTube stopped being a website and became a culture.