11. The voice recognition lift ("Eleven!")
🔊 Voice meme2010 · Burnistoun (BBC Scotland), then YouTube
Eleven!
In a sketch from the BBC Scotland comedy Burnistoun, two office workers step into a lift with no buttons that only takes spoken commands. It cannot understand their accents, and the more they shout "eleven", the broader and angrier they get.
Why it's funny: It turns a real everyday frustration, voice tech that fails on Scottish accents, into a shouting match with a machine.
Also searched as: Scottish elevator meme, Burnistoun elevator, Scottish voice recognition lift, eleven eleven elevator.
22. Disgustang
🔊 Voice meme2013 · Reddit and YouTube
Disgustang!
A furious mum in Edinburgh bursts into a webcam recording to find out who left the toilet unflushed, and her accent turns "disgusting" into "disgustang". It was posted to Reddit in August 2013, spread on YouTube and is still quoted in Scotland years later.
Why it's funny: An ordinary household complaint delivered at full volume, with one word bent into a catchphrase by the accent.
Also searched as: disgustang meme, Scottish mum toilet meme, Scottish mum webcam meme, who shet in the toilet.
33. Steel is heavier than feathers
🔇 No sound needed2012 · BBC Scotland sketch show, then 9GAG, Reddit and Tumblr
Because steel is heavier than feathers.
A man asks his friends the old trick question about a kilogram of steel and a kilogram of feathers, then insists the steel is heavier while they keep correcting him. It aired on BBC Scotland in 2012 and became a meme in 2015.
Why it's funny: Someone gets a school riddle wrong with total confidence and never backs down, which made it shorthand for stubborn wrongness.
Also searched as: steel is heavier than feathers meme, kilogram of steel or kilogram of feathers, what's heavier a kilogram of steel.
44. Hurricane Bawbag
🔇 No sound needed2011 · Twitter
I survived Hurricane Bawbag
When a hurricane-force windstorm hit Scotland in December 2011, Scots gave it a rude Scots nickname and #HurricaneBawbag trended worldwide. A phone video of a garden trampoline blowing down a street became its most famous clip.
Why it's funny: A serious weather warning met a whole nation calling the storm a Scots word for scrotum.
Also searched as: #HurricaneBawbag, Hurricane Bawbag 2011, bawbag storm, Hurricane Bawbag trampoline.
66. Glasgow Willy Wonka Experience
🔇 No sound needed2024 · X (Twitter) and Facebook
Encherining Entertainment
A "chocolate experience" in Glasgow, advertised with lavish AI-made posters full of misspellings, turned out to be a nearly empty warehouse with a few props. Photos of a glum Oompa Loompa at a smoky table went around the world in February 2024.
Why it's funny: The gap between the AI poster and the bleak warehouse is enormous, and the photos say it without a word.
Also searched as: Willy's Chocolate Experience, sad Oompa Loompa meme, Wonka experience Glasgow.
77. What are you doing in my swamp?
🔊 Voice meme2001 · Shrek (film), then YouTube remixes
What are you doing in my swamp?!
A grumpy green ogre flings open his door to find his swamp full of fairy-tale creatures and bellows at them in a Scottish accent. Remixes of the line spread on YouTube and SoundCloud from 2013.
Why it's funny: The territorial roar fits any unwanted visitor, and the accent makes it sound like a furious neighbour.
Also searched as: Shrek swamp meme, Shrek Scottish accent, get out of my swamp.
88. Braveheart "Freedom!"
🔊 Voice meme1995 · Braveheart (film), memes ever since
They'll never take our freedom!
A Scottish rebel leader in blue face paint rides along his army and gives a rousing speech that ends in a roar about freedom. People reuse it for every small loss of liberty, such as the empty toilet-roll shelves of 2020.
Why it's funny: Its earnest heroism fits perfectly onto trivial complaints.
Also searched as: Braveheart freedom meme, they may take our lives but they'll never take our freedom, Braveheart speech meme.
99. Gonnae no dae that
🔊 Voice meme1999-2002 · Chewin' the Fat (BBC Scotland)
Gonnae no dae that? Just… gonnae no?
Two lighthouse keepers on a remote island in the BBC Scotland sketch show Chewin' the Fat: one keeps pulling pranks, the other pleads with him to stop in the same weary exchange every time.
Why it's funny: The deadpan plea against a prankster who never learns became the Scottish way to say "please don't".
Also searched as: gonnae no dae that meme, gonnae no, Chewin' the Fat lighthouse.
1010. Taps aff
🔇 No sound neededLong-standing Scots slang · Social media and weather headlines
Taps aff!
Scots for "tops off": the moment Scottish men pull their shirts off on the first remotely warm day of the year. National news uses it in weather headlines.
Why it's funny: It celebrates a "heatwave" that most countries would call a mild spring day.
Also searched as: taps aff meaning, taps aff weather, tops off Scotland.
1111. It's shite being Scottish
🔊 Voice meme1996 · Trainspotting (film)
It's shite being Scottish!
In the film Trainspotting, a young man stands in a Highland field and rants to his friends that being Scottish is the worst. The line, and the film's "Choose life" speech, are quoted and rewritten endlessly.
Why it's funny: A furious rant against your own country, delivered in front of a stunning landscape.
Also searched as: Trainspotting Scottish speech, Trainspotting choose life meme, shite being Scottish quote.
1212. Cheese-eating surrender monkeys
🔊 Voice meme1995 · The Simpsons, then the press
Bonjourrr, ye cheese-eating surrender monkeys!
The Simpsons' hot-tempered Scottish groundskeeper is made to teach French after budget cuts and greets the class with a rolling-R insult. The phrase spread through newspapers and entered the Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations.
Why it's funny: An angry Scot forced into the gentlest job delivers the most aggressive "bonjour" ever.
Also searched as: Groundskeeper Willie meme, Scottish janitor Simpsons, bonjour you cheese eating surrender monkeys.
1313. No Scotland, No Party
🔊 Voice meme2024 · Euro 2024 fan videos
No Scotland, no party!
Scotland fans partied their way across Germany at Euro 2024 with a chant claiming no tournament is a party without them, and won over the locals even as the team went out in the group stage.
Why it's funny: The fans' confidence is total, whatever the score.
Also searched as: No Scotland no party song, Tartan Army Euro 2024, Scotland fans Germany.
1414. Yes Sir, I Can Boogie
🔊 Voice meme2020 · Dressing-room video, then fan chants
Yes sir, I can boogie!
A 1977 disco hit became Scotland's unofficial football anthem, and went viral when the squad sang it in the dressing room after qualifying for their first major tournament in 22 years.
Why it's funny: A camp disco song as the battle hymn of the Tartan Army is a joyous mismatch.
Also searched as: Yes Sir I Can Boogie Scotland, Scotland boogie song, Tartan Army anthem.
1515. Merida's Scottish slang
🔇 No sound needed2018 · Twitter
Ye cannae break te laws of phyusucs
After an animated film trailer showed a Scottish princess the other princesses cannot understand, Twitter filled with screenshots of her captioned in exaggerated phonetic Scots.
Why it's funny: It plays on the "nobody understands the Scottish one" joke, with captions written as near-unreadable Scots.
Also searched as: Merida accent meme, Merida tweets, Ralph Breaks the Internet Merida.
1616. Still Game "Two pints"
🔊 Voice meme2002 · Still Game (BBC Scotland)
Two pints, pr*ck.
In the Glasgow sitcom Still Game, two pensioner pals walk into their local, trade insults with the barman and order with the same blunt two-word sign-off.
Why it's funny: A daily ritual of affectionate abuse, which might be the most Glaswegian way to order a drink.
Also searched as: Still Game two pints, Still Game memes, Jack and Victor.
1717. The wrong house
🔊 Voice meme2019 · Facebook
Trust me man, there was no party here last night.
A man who walked into the house next to an after-party, made himself noodles and fell asleep on the sofa filmed himself waking up to the bemused owners. They made him a cup of tea.
Why it's funny: He is mortified, and the owners answer with total Scottish hospitality instead of calling the police.
Also searched as: drunk Scottish man wrong house, Scottish guy wakes up in wrong house, no party here last night.
1818. The Glasgow cone statue
🔇 No sound neededSince the 1980s · Glasgow street, then every postcard
A traffic cone has sat on the head of the Duke of Wellington statue outside Glasgow's Gallery of Modern Art for decades, and a council plan to stop it was dropped after a public petition.
Why it's funny: A whole city decided a traffic cone improves a 19th-century statue, and the city won.
Also searched as: Duke of Wellington cone, Glasgow statue traffic cone, cone head statue Glasgow.
1919. The Doritos seagull
🔇 No sound needed2007 · TV news, then web video
A herring gull in Aberdeen made a habit of walking into a newsagent and strolling out with a bag of cheese Doritos, and customers started chipping in to pay for them.
Why it's funny: Scotland's most brazen shoplifter is a bird, and it has a favourite flavour.
Also searched as: seagull steals Doritos Aberdeen, Sam the seagull, seagull shoplifter Scotland.
2020. There's been a murder
🔊 Voice meme1983 · Taggart (STV)
There's been a murrrder.
The line everyone uses to do a Glasgow detective impression, after the long-running STV crime series Taggart. Fans point out it was almost never said on screen.
Why it's funny: A misremembered line with a rolled R became the go-to Scottish accent impression.
Also searched as: Taggart there's been a murder, there's been a murrrder, Taggart catchphrase.