Oh, Nintendo. What a wacky, wacky bunch you are.

Now, as we know, everyone feels some kind of way about Nintendo. Maybe you think they’re the super-creative saviours of the industry; daring innovators with no interest in following the me-too fashions of the industry. Let Sony and Microsoft battle it out over tech specs and VR, we’re happy playing with our Labo cardboard boxes like a thrilled kitten in a YouTube video. If you can dig a little whimsical creativity, then Nintendo are sure to deliver.

This is all well and good, but if you’re totally sceptical about the House of Mario, that’s perfectly justified too. Haters gonna hate, as the internet likes to say, and there’s plenty of ammunition for the Nintendo detractors to latch onto as well. Innovation is one thing, but dropping something totally out of left field just for the sake of it definitely isn’t cool. That kind of thinking leads to the Virtual Boy, and nobody needs that red-and-black migraine machine in their lives.

Then, of course, there’s the whole kiddy reputation and low tech specs thing. However hard the company try, there’s a band of gamers who will always see Nintendo as a bit of a laughing stock in the grand scheme of things.

However you feel about these guys, though, there’s no denying that they’re a huge part of popular culture. That means only one thing: memes aplenty. Check out this hilarious roundup of some of the greatest and snarkiest Nintendo memes around.

25 When Your Barber Gets Your N64-Inspired Hairstyle Spot On

As we’ve already seen, a creative and super-snarky memer is a valuable thing. It’s easy to share a meme along with your friends, everyone does that. It’s a whole different thing to be the originator, the accept no imitations first.

That’s a tough thing, though, with the internet being as lightning fast and copy/paste happy as it is. It’s impossible to say what's real and what isn't.

Is that Facebook status really like-worthy, or did they just brazenly steal it from someone else?

Despite all of this, there’s definitely scope to recycle a meme and make it your own in the process. That’s what it’s all about, at the end of the day. Here, the classic Say No More Barber takes on a whole new lease of life, resulting in something I will never be able to unsee. Ever.

24 When The Phantom Penguin-Thrower Strikes Again

“Some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money,” Michael Caine said Michael Caine-ily in The Dark Knight. “They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

There isn’t always anything wrong with this way of thinking. These can also be the sort of people who achieve ridiculous new Guinness World Records, just because why not? The sort of people who make scientific discoveries because they were playing around with something new just for the sake of it.

Video games provide ample opportunities for this sort of thing, what with not being real life and all. Weren’t you curious to try throwing the baby penguin off of the map in Super Mario 64, just to see if anything would happen? Of course, you were. Don’t even try to deny it.

23 When Girls Aloud Suddenly All Bust Out Their DS

If you’re anything like me, you’ve been gaming for decades, and you remember the good old days of couch co-op. I cherish memories of all those Saturdays I spent with friends, huddled around my tiny square 90s TV, howling, raging and laughing endlessly. Mario Kart blue shell shenanigans? Check. Devious Smash Bros. custom stages? Check. Splitscreen Timesplitters 2 fun? You’d better believe that’s a check.

Looking back, Nintendo have been central to a lot of our childhood local co-op experiences. The Switch still provides a lot of that sort of thing, with the likes of 1-2-Switch, but it’s a little sad how scarce these sorts of games are becoming. I miss the days when Girls Aloud would just spontaneously whip out their DSes and play together. Which never happened.

22 When Your Dad Trolls You And Destroys Your Hopes And Dreams

As we all know, it’s our parents’ solemn duty to embarrass us. As a teenager, just when you think they’ve reached peak shame-bringing, they hit you with something new. For the more creative parent, there’s a whole range of new and exciting ways to be embarrassing.

That time dad dressed as you to parody your Facebook profile picture? That was years ago, and the pain never goes away. These are just the sorts of things you have to accept, because this is the way of the world. One day, you’ll be able to do the same to your children, and so the circle of life continues.

A MAGIKARP?

There’s still a line you never cross, however, and here it is. Why would you send your child out into the world with just a Magikarp for protection? A Magikarp? You heartless monster!

21 When Rainbow Road Shows Absolutely Zero Mercy

As a hardened fan of Mario Kart, I long ago made my peace with the ultimate truth of the series: however much you may love it, it loathes you.

Mario Kart may look cutesy and innocent on the surface, but it’s a harsh mistress. The moment you feel like something’s finally starting to go your way in a race, you’ll take seventeen red shell to the backside and a blue on the final straight. It’s artificial, RNG-based difficulty, and it’s truly brutal.

It hates you like you’ve just roundhouse kicked its grandma in the face.

The tracks themselves aren’t particularly harsh for the most part, but every instalment has a Rainbow Road. These have varied over the franchise’s long run, but they’re almost always a real pain. Usually the most popular tracks online, too.

20 When The Switch's Controllers Are Pretty Darn Expensive

For as long as there have been dedicated games consoles, there have been kooky controllers. The Genesis/Meg Drive’s flat, bland one, N64’s three-pronged beast, the original Xbox one the size of the average studio apartment… it’s been quite a ride.

That’s not even touching on the controllers that third parties have released or the ones that modders have made themselves.

There are some truly beautiful controllers out there, and just as many horrendous ones.

Recently, Xbox One, in particular, has brought us some pretty neat designs with limited edition controllers. The thing about all of these is, they’re sure not cheap. The Switch’s Joy Cons may have all manner of witchcraft and wizardry packed into their teeny twin shells (and those Splatoon ones look neat), but they don’t come cheap.

19 When You’re Feeling A Little Insecure About Your… Size

Well, darn. This image just blew my mind; blew it right out of my darn skull and through the roof. Like in a cartoon, when someone steps on something sharp/hot. It hadn’t really occurred to me that there was some natural progression going on here, but now I can never unsee this.

ARMS is, in all sorts of ways, just classic Nintendo. One of the Switch’s more peculiar launch titles, this new IP is to fighting games what Mario Kart is to racers. It’s incredibly fun and surprisingly deep to boot. I iknow the whole idea was to get us throwing punches and blocking with our Joy Cons, but I just couldn’t get into that. Still, when it comes to Wii Sports Boxing 2.0, we couldn’t have hoped for better.

18 When You’re Feeling A Little Déjà Vu Coming On

As I say, ARMS has Nintendo written all over it. It’s something totally fresh, a little unhinged and just completely endearing.

These are the sorts of things that contribute to the developers’ legendary reputation. They’re always bringing something new to the table. Usually, something lavished in primary colors and cutesiness, granted, but something new all the same.

The GameCube had the original Pikmin, the Switch has ARMS.

Sometimes, though, that sort of high praise makes us lose sight of the big picture. As the wise old saying goes, there are only a handful of basic plots that make up the general storylines of every tale ever told (that’s basically the gist, anyway). Just about everything has some kind of root, and it’s not always about who ripped off who.

17 When Your Meme-Making Is Just A Cut Above

So, yes. We’ve waxed lyrical about Nintendo and their creative prowess. We’ve admired the innovations that they’re brought to the industry. Touchscreens, motion controls, tablet-like systems… not all of them have been hits, true enough, but when Nintendo strike gold, they really do set the industry alight.

Let’s put all of that aside just for a moment, though, to check out a whole different kind of creative brilliance. In a world where memes can often seem a little overused and hackneyed, I can safely say that this is something I’ve never seen before. I don’t feel as though I needed to ever see it, but still. How do people even come up with these sorts of things? The meme-makers of the web are a mystifying bunch at times.

16 Charmander Ascends To A Whole New Level Of Monster

You know what, Charmander? I don’t need to be treated like this. I really don’t. You’d better stop with that sort of behaviour right now.

You can barely step through your front door without being accosted by a billion Pidgey, but anything interesting?

As any Pokémon Go player will tell you, the rarer ‘mon are like darn gold dust a lot of the time. I’ve only ever seen one Venusaur spawn, and I’ve been playing since release. I remember the one Dragonite I ever found; I hammered that troll with every Ultra and Great Ball I had, and it just flipped me off repeatedly in response.

When you see a rare spawn and you miss out on it, it’s really disheartening. Why do you have to be this way, Charmander?

15 When You've Seen The Wii U Somewhere Before...

Now, the Wii U would be one example of Nintendo misfire. As surely as they change the game forever when they do well, their screw-ups are always suitably huge to match.

What was it that went so wrong with the Wii U? The lack of third-party support was one of the major players. This has been one of the company’s main failing for generations, and that held totally true here too.

Another thing was the lack of differentiation. For the average consumer, there was little to tell the Wii U from the Wii, and the whole planet already owned one of those. It was a little too familiar.

I guess you could say it was also a little too similar to the unwieldy GBA link system too.

14 When The GameCube Was The Ultimate Fashion Accessory

Now, don’t get me wrong here. There will always be a soft spot in my cynical old heart for the GameCube. Those tiny discs, the huge bump in tech specs from the previous gen (Nintendo-ly speaking), the default purple colour option that no other darn console has offered…this little thing was a class act.

These were the days, after all, when ‘portable’ meant about as big as a darn house brick.

It boasts one of my favorite console libraries ever, too, with the likes of Luigi’s Mansion, Mario Sunshine, Super Smash Bros. Melee and the erstwhile exclusive remake of Resident Evil. At the same time, though, it did have a sort of Fisher-Price look to it. What exactly were we supposed to do with that handle?

13 When Toadette Throws ALL Of The Shade

Man does THIS evoke powerful memories of MSN Messenger conversations back in the day. You’d hop online, start up a conversation with someone you went to school with a couple of years back, and realize that you’ve totally moved on since then. You’ve drifted apart, as tends to happen, and you now have absolutely zero in common.

So what have you been up to? That’s the fateful question. The answer’s generally something along the lines of not a lot, just the usual, and the conversation grinds to a halt right there. I guess that’s what adulting is all about.

We all get stuck in ruts sometimes. Even our old buddy Mario. I’m sure those who find Super Mario games to be becoming a little stale and samey will love this one.

12 When Nintendo Just Don't Offer The Tech Specs, And You Aren't About That Life

As we all know, Nintendo are renowned for giving slightly less than zero about what their competitors are doing. PlayStation and Xbox want to duke it out over traditional home console powerhouses, and have been doing for years now.

Meanwhile, Nintendo are developing Wii Wheels and Balance Boards and all manner of oddities.

The phrase home console powerhouse, however, is sure to be seen as an oxymoron by a certain band of gamers. PC players, as a community, have a reputation for being a little smug about their rigs. This isn’t always the case, far from it, but it’s most certainly a thing. It’s quite sad, really, as judging someone for their own personal gaming preferences is one of the pettiest things I can imagine, but I guess there are decades of console war evidence that disagrees with me on that.

11 When Sony and Microsoft Need To Step Up And Get On Your Level

Speaking of console wars, this is the eternal argument that keeps cropping up. Nintendo fans and followers of their rivals have hammered this one into the ground over the years, but they keep dredging up the same old stalemate. Are Nintendo just irrelevant, eccentric kooks, dropping weird new ideas for the sake of weird new ideas like the professor from Flubber? Or are they brilliant pioneers, fearlessly innovating and as their competitors try to copy their ideas to keep up?

There’s really no definitive answer to that. It depends who you ask. Me, I own all three current-gen consoles and I’m happy with them all, so I don’t like to wade in on this sort of thing. Again, though, there’s plenty of ammunition for both sides of the argument.

10 When Nintendo Labo Is For Life, Not Just For Snarky Memes

Prior to the release of their great cardboard masterpiece Nintendo Labo, the company teased a new way to play, one that would be targeted more at their younger audience. This was suitably cryptic, as is the case with PR teases, but it served well enough. We had a decent idea of what their intentions for this project were right off the bat, but that hasn’t stopped the snarky backlash.

Once a Nintendo fan, always a Nintendo fan.

This isn’t the way you counteract that ‘kiddy’ image, is it? Still, what does it matter?  The faithful will be there at day one, like they always are, with robot kits put together and their excitable photos of such on social media. That’s just the way things go around here.

9 When Nintendo Have Their Moustache Priorities Darn Straight

As we’ve seen, Nintendo are not the kind of guys to go full tryhard when it comes to specs. This is why they tend to be the most at odds with PC players, who have a constant minimum specifications/recommended specifications code to live by. This has never really been a concern with the House of Mario’s systems, for better or worse. When it comes to the technology behind the hood, they’re usually too busy fixing some kind of new functionality and/or gimmickry in there.

This doesn’t mean that their games can’t be visually impressive, though. When you look at the animation in something like Super Mario Odyssey or ARMS, you can just feel the love that’s been put into crafting it. That’s some pretty sweet attention to detail.

8 When The Nintendo 64 Is Even More 'Unbreakable' Than The M. Night Shyamalan Movie

As the older generation is sure to tell us, given half a chance, they just don’t make them like they used to. This is a double-edged sword, really. On the one hand, it was nice having cellphones that didn’t crack and smudge if you so much as looked at them. On the other, though, I’d really rather have a teeny multifunctional smartphone in my pocket.

Who the heck wants to still be playing Snake in 2018?

It’s all about perspective. I only recently got myself a smartphone in the last couple of years, having been using my Sony Ericsson K750i (remember those? Probably not) for over a decade. It was a super simple device, but I’ll tell you one thing: it never glitched, froze, rebooted or got damaged in all of that time.

Similarly, N64 cartridges could probably survive a direct hit from a ballistic missile, completely unharmed. What a beast of a console.

7 When Nintendo 64 Kid Really Shouldn't Be Funny Anymore

There’s a select group of people who just transcend being featured in a meme. They are the meme, become the meme. They are born of the meme, made men by the meme, undone by the meme. Fear the old meme.

Snarky Bloodborne references aside, there’s no doubt that the infamous Nintendo Sixty Foooooour kid is one of these people. A harmless home video of an excitable child opening his Christmas presents went viral, and is now the stuff of internet legend.

Sure, he may not be looking back at this as his finest hour right about now, but there’s one positive to draw from all of this. Getting those Christmas gifts this right is parenting goals for sure. Shine on, you overly-excitable diamond. Shine on.

6 When Luigi Just Can't Catch A Break

When it comes to Mario underdogs, I’m more of a Wario fan myself. There’s just something about the guy and his lightning bolt mustache. That completely hilarious, derpy face from Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins? How could you not appreciate that?

At the same time, though, there’s no doubt that Luigi deserves a little more limelight himself. A few years back, Nintendo announced the Year Of Luigi in his honour, suggesting that even they themselves know how criminally underappreciated he’s been.

That’s just his sad fate, though. He’s destined to play second fiddle forever.

So much so, it’s odd how convinced I was that there was actually a lottery held in the Mushroom Kingdom for a moment there. If that were the case, you know this is how that would go down.