25 Hilarious Elden Ring Memes That Still Define The Lands Between (Feat. Shadow Of The Erdtree Hype)

Step into the Lands Between on this December 10, 2025, and you'll quickly realize the true Elden Lord is not Marika, but the collective humor of the Tarnished community. The world of Elden Ring, a brutal and beautiful masterpiece from FromSoftware, is a place of epic tragedy, crushing difficulty, and surprisingly, endless comedy. The game’s opacity, its iconic characters, and its soul-crushing bosses have created a meme ecosystem so rich and enduring that it continues to evolve years after its initial release, constantly refreshed by the anticipation and eventual arrival of new content like the massive Shadow of the Erdtree DLC. This article explores the funniest, most enduring, and latest jokes that keep the community from 'going hollow'.

The shared suffering and cryptic lore of Elden Ring have forged a unique bond among players. It’s a community that laughs to keep from crying, turning every brutal boss fight, every cryptic message, and every confusing lore detail into a source of relatable, side-splitting humor. From the simple, often-misleading player messages to the legendary exploits of community heroes, the memes are the true legacy of the game.

The Immortal Classics: Elden Ring's Foundational Memes and Entities

Before diving into the newest jokes, it's essential to honor the foundational memes—the entities and phrases that established the game's comedic identity. These are the touchstones for every Tarnished, new and old.

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• Maidenless: This is arguably the most recognizable meme. It originated from the game's opening moments when the player is immediately mocked for being "maidenless" by the NPC White-Faced Varré. The phrase quickly became a universal insult and a shorthand for failure or lack of companionship in the game.
• Try Fingers, But Hole: A classic piece of Soulsborne community humor, the player-left messages in Elden Ring are a meme factory. This particular message, often left near holes, statues, or even boss fog gates, is a crude but hilarious example of the community's playful toxicity and has become synonymous with the game's unique multiplayer messaging system.
• "What's Dog?": This meme refers to the community's affectionate misidentification of the various turtle creatures in the game, most notably the giant, benevolent NPC Miriel, Pastor of Vows (the "Turtle Pope"). Despite clearly being a tortoise, the community lovingly and ironically refers to him as "dog," a joke that highlights the game's bizarre creature design.
• Pot Boy/Alexander: The great jar warrior, Iron Fist Alexander, or simply "Pot Boy," is a fan favorite. His questline and his distinctive, jovial nature—despite being a giant, sentient jar—made him an instant meme. Jokes often revolve around his physical appearance, his desire to be a mighty warrior, and his tendency to get stuck in the ground.
• "I Am Malenia, Blade of Miquella": Malenia, one of the game's most infamously difficult bosses, became a meme due to her unskippable, repeated introductory line. The phrase is now a symbol of insurmountable difficulty and the sheer terror of her Waterfowl Dance attack.
• Let Me Solo Her: The legendary player who became famous for helping countless struggling Tarnished defeat Malenia while wearing only a jar on his head and wielding two katanas. "Let Me Solo Her" (LMSH) is a meme of pure heroism, skill, and community spirit, representing the best of the Elden Ring player base.
• The Runebear: A terrifying, disproportionately aggressive enemy found early in the game. Memes about the Runebear focus on the sheer panic and overwhelming power of encountering it, often leading to the classic "YOU DIED" screen.

Shadow of the Erdtree: The New Wave of Elden Ring Memes

The announcement and subsequent release of the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC injected a massive dose of new life into the meme landscape. The humor shifted from the base game's difficulty to the intense anticipation, the new challenges, and the DLC’s specific new characters and locations.

The Hype, The Wait, and The 'Hollowing'

For a long time, the community was in a state of "hollowing"—a term borrowed from Dark Souls referring to the loss of hope and humanity. The wait for the DLC became a meme in itself, with players creating increasingly desperate and absurd posts begging for news from Hidetaka Miyazaki, the game's director.

• Miyazaki's Basement: A recurring joke that Miyazaki was intentionally withholding the DLC, locked away in a basement somewhere, often depicted as maniacally laughing at the community's suffering.
• The "Shadow of the Easy Tree" Irony: Immediately upon the DLC's release, the difficulty memes returned. A popular joke was ironically calling the DLC "Shadow of the Easy Tree," which quickly turned into a meme about the new, brutal difficulty spikes and the realization that FromSoftware had, once again, made an impossibly hard game.
• New Boss Terrors: Just as Malenia defined the base game, the new major bosses introduced in the DLC, such as Messmer the Impaler and the various new field bosses, immediately became the subject of countless rage-quit and difficulty memes.
• The Scadutree Blessing Grind: The new progression system in the DLC, which requires players to find Scadutree Fragments to increase their power specifically within the new area, became a meme about the tedious "grind" and the feeling of being too weak to fight basic enemies until enough fragments were collected.

The Topical Authority: Why Elden Ring’s Humor Endures

The longevity and cultural impact of Elden Ring memes are a testament to how FromSoftware games are designed. The games are not just about combat; they are about a shared, often punishing, experience. This shared experience is the engine of the meme economy.

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The game's open-world structure, the Lands Between, is vast and filled with confusing, contradictory lore. This ambiguity is a goldmine for humor. Players fill in the blanks with their own silly interpretations. The memes act as a coping mechanism for the difficulty and a way to simplify the complex world into relatable, bite-sized pieces of comedy.

• The Lore vs. The Reality: Memes often juxtapose the grand, epic, and tragic lore of characters like Radagon and Marika with the player's crude in-game actions, such as repeatedly jumping off cliffs to reset a fight or spending hours farming runes.
• The Level 1 Run Jokes: The community's obsession with challenge runs (like the Level 1 Wretch run) often leads to memes celebrating the masochistic tendencies of the player base. The joke is that the most fun way to play the game is often the hardest.
• The Build Debate: The endless arguments over the "best" build—whether it's a Dexterity build, a Faith build, or a Bleed build—are a constant source of meme material, often featuring the "We Are Not The Same" template to mock players who use "easy mode" builds.
• NPC Dialogue Parody: Iconic lines from characters like Melina ("I am searching for my purpose") or Ranni the Witch are frequently parodied, replacing the original, serious context with mundane, modern-day scenarios.

The depth of the game—from its Great Runes and Demigods to its countless Ashes of War and Spirit Ashes—provides an almost infinite well of comedic entities. The sheer number of items, locations (like Caelid or Leyndell), and enemy types (from Crystalians to Godrick the Grafted) ensures that the humor remains fresh. The memes are a communal language, a secret handshake for anyone who has stared at the "YOU DIED" screen for the hundredth time. They are the true reward for surviving the Lands Between.