Chuck Norris will always be remembered for his iconic film and television performances, such as a crime-fighting sheriff in Walker, Texas Ranger. But many young people only know the late actor for his starring role in thousands of memes.

Originating on message boards in the early 2000s, the memes, dubbed "Chuck Norris facts", became a genre of their own by the 2010s. They jokingly portrayed the actor as superhuman, terrifying and god-like.

• "Chuck Norris can pass a vision test with his eyes closed"
• "When the Hulk gets really angry, he turns into Chuck Norris"
• "The flu has to get a Chuck Norris shot once a year"
• "Chuck Norris doesn't turn on the shower, he stares at it until it starts to cry"

The 86-year-old died on Thursday after being admitted to hospital in the state of Hawaii.

In a statement posted online, his family said they wanted to keep the circumstances "private".

"While our hearts are broken, we are deeply grateful for the life he lived and for the unforgettable moments we were blessed to share with him," they wrote.

Greta Norris, the actor's granddaughter, paid tribute to him on social media, revealing that she, too, was aware of her grandpa's status in the internet hall of fame.

"You all knew Chuck Norris as the man that counted to infinity twice, the man who got bit by a cobra and the cobra died," she says. "The world truly lost an icon and I lost my grandpa."

Where did the Chuck Norris memes come from?

Meme fan Steven Goodwin, 64, says the viral gags have been around for years - starting as jokes during the heydey of Norris' acting career.

In the 1970s and 80s, he solidified himself as an action star with movies Missing in Action and Bruce Lee's The Way of the Dragon.

But the memes ensured he remained a potent cultural force long after his last big-screen credits rolled.

"They were everywhere," Goodwin said of the online gags. "Chuck Norris did everything better than everyone else. He was stronger, faster, tougher."

But many young people say they only know the jokes - without any other context about Norris.

"I feel like, for most of my generation, the 'Chuck Norris doesn't x' meme format was really about all we knew about him," said Sam Smith, 25.

"He kind of just fit a masculine action-star stereotype... I'm pretty much positive none of us could name a movie he'd been in."

The Chuck Norris memes spread like wildfire in the early days of social media in the 2000s.

"These memes were ubiquitous," said Surabi Rao, 27.

"No matter which social media platform I visited, someone would always be posting these memes in the comments... I would laugh, even though I really had no clue who Chuck Norris was."

Photos of Norris with a menacing expression and white block text superimposed proliferated on Facebook and X (or Twitter, as it was back then), where they were shared widely.

"When we learned about the Earth's rotation, someone said the Earth actually rotated because Chuck Norris ran too hard," said Ayan Kazi, 27.

He added that he saw the memes in primary school, but "never actually knew who Chuck Norris was.

While the memes have become less ubiquitous across social media, in some corners of the internet they are alive and well.

A Facebook page called "Chuck Jokes" has 279,000 followers and is populated by daily Chuck Norris content, particularly memes.

After transforming from word of mouth to early internet memes, Chuck Norris jokes are now getting the AI treatment.

"Chuck Norris can send texts on a rotary phone," reads a meme the page posted on Thursday. Under it is an AI-generated image of Norris holding a rotary phone.

Norris himself seemed to be aware of his controversial, albeit legendary place in pop culture, and even poked fun at the jokes and memes by reading them aloud during interviews and laughing along.

In one famous clip, Norris describes petting a Bengal tiger. All of a sudden, he said, there was a growling sound.

"So the trainer says, 'get up very slowly and back up,'" Norris recounted. "So the tiger did. He slowly got up and backed out."