It’s only fans of Grey’s Anatomy who know why the internet was crying back in 2015 near the end of the show’s eleventh season. That was because our very own McDreamy had passed away onscreen, and his absence has continued to be felt.
Now the fandom has diverted their sadness into comedy, as Derek Shepherd is remembered through the use of memes and fan posts on the internet. While most of them make note of his magnetic charm, they also do carry a certain amount of hilarity that Grey’s Anatomy fans instantly understand. To put that idea to the test, here are 10 of the best Derek memes a fan can find.
Best Crossover Ever
There have been many fan speculations and theories over the years for Friends, but this would be one of the absolute greatest crossovers. Even though Derek was only ever a character and Patrick Dempsey isn’t an actual doctor, fans will always associate him with the profession.
In the same way, Joey’s huge popularity means even his character, Dr. Drake Ramoray, is one fans associate the actor with. Both known for their love for cars and racing, when Dempsey and Matt LeBlanc met, fans couldn’t resist bringing up the point that two of the most famous “neurosurgeons” finally met.
That's Some Magical Hair
The best quality of Derek’s appearance was his gorgeous hair, which seemed to have some sort of supernatural powers that enabled the hairdo to remain intact. In fact, times of stress somehow seemed to make Derek’s hairs even stronger, to the point that they seemed invincible.
How else can you explain a hairstyle that never tarnishes? We have a whole lot of incidents where this guy was down and out. Considering he even got thrown out a freakin’ airplane and still had incredible hair speaks volumes over its amazing quality.
That's Just Unfair
The actor had requested his leave for the show, which meant killing off Derek had to follow one of the usual Grey’s Anatomy patterns — meaning it couldn’t make a lot of sense. While in that moment you could argue there wasn’t anything that could’ve been done for Derek, one does want to roll their eyes considering how much Derek had survived beforehand.
This is a guy who lived through being shot point blank and was then in a plane crash only a couple years later, from which he walked away relatively fine. To top it off, his death was basically due to an inconvenience, providing a little bit of black humor.
Over And Under Reaction
The viewers knew that Derek loved Meredith way more than he’d ever loved Addison was by having him punch out Mark the first time the latter showed up onscreen and talked to Meredith. This made it clear that his feelings for Addison were nowhere near as strong, seeing as he’d simply walked out when he’d seen her and Mark together.
However, this doesn’t change the fact that Derek had seen his wife be with his best friend and hardly reacted, while he’d seen his girlfriend of just a few months only speak with the same man and gone overboard.
Those Dreamy Eyes
This one might not even be restricted simply toward fans of the show, since it was common knowledge that the main love interest on Grey’s Anatomy could melt anyone the way he looked at Meredith. Actually, quite a certain amount of people tuned in just to see what the big deal about those dreamy eyes were.
It was one of the most defining traits of the character, as you could tell simply by looking at him how much he loved Meredith. It’s one of the things that make us laugh because it’s an instant reminder of the person Derek was.
No Guys Can Compare
On TV, you can find protagonists who can scare the life out of you, or main characters like Derek who start giving you unrealistic expectations toward romance. Women who watched Grey’s Anatomy in its heyday loved to swoon over McDreamy, who seemed to represent the perfect kind of love.
We’ve already mentioned how dreamy his eyes were, so you can see why women would tend to make Derek the ultimate benchmark over how a man is supposed to be. This meme might make men laugh more, though, since we know it’s pretty much impossible to measure up to someone like Derek.
That One Role
Fans of the character instantly became fans of Patrick Dempsey as well, which influenced them to watch his other work too. In 2011, we had the release of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, whose marketing hid the fact that Dempsey’s character was a bad guy.
This led to many fans being outraged when they found out he was in cahoots with the Decepticons rather than be the same dreamy character they wanted to see. In this meme, even Leonardo DiCaprio is having a hard time digesting this news.
Flawless Logic
Denial is both sad and funny, and memes can be brought about from extreme cases of denial, especially in the case of Derek’s death. Fans couldn’t believe when he did end up dying, which led to outrage and eventual jokes at its expense.
To this end, this fan figured the best way to cope with Derek’s death was to totally ignore it even happened, and you could even argue that they have a good point to make here. If you take out the episode where he died, you could pretend he’s gone on an extended vacation and simply decided not to show up anymore.
Eerily Familiar
Both McDreamy and McSteamy were the most handsome characters Grey’s Anatomy ever had, and viewers wondered how the show could overcome their losses. It seems Shonda Rhimes’ strategy turned out to make it a 2-in-1 situation, as DeLuca looks like both Derek and Mark.
This should work out really well for Meredith considering she admitted she found Mark attractive, while DeLuca’s features reminding her of Derek should mean it’s like he never died in the first place.
That's Not An Actual Relationship
Some girls went so over-the-top in their obsession with Derek that they liked to call him their boyfriend. This ties up with the earlier meme of women’s expectations for men to be like Derek, but these particular fangirls like to outright claim they were in a relationship with him.
It was all in good fun, of course, but this meme does poke fun at it. These kinds of fans like to tout their “relationship” on the internet, with some people catching on that the description actually fit Derek Shepherd rather than an actual person. Now that he’s gone, we admit we miss this kind of fandom. At least we still have the memes to laugh at, though, right?