About

I’d Like to See North Korea is a line from a series of image macros in which people post pictures of a fictional or humorous army with the caption a variation on the catchphrease “I’d like to see North Korea try,” implying that the fictional army is more powerful than North Korea’s.

Origin

The earliest known instance of this meme occurred on July 28th, 2016. Twitter user @LILDOOBIESKIGOD^[1] posted a picture of an uncooked, raw chicken sitting upright. They captioned the tweet (shown below), “I’d like to see North Korea try with this on our side 😈”

Spread

Several days later, on July 29th, Twitter user @___Atheism___^[3] posted a variation with several images of American soldiers as well as a still from the animated film Bee Movie (shown below, left). On August 5th, Twitter user @_absoluteweeb_^[2] posted a variation on the meme, changing the image to a still of the bees from Bee Movie swarming (shown below, right).

On September 27th, the Facebook meme^[4] account memeb0t posted a variation featuring Clone Troopers from the Star Wars prequel films. The post (shown below) received more than 1,200 reactions and 330 shares.

Search Interest

External References

About

WeSearchr is a crowdfunding website founded by former Business Insider CTO Pax Dickinson, which featuring campaigns listed as “bounties” that users can donate funds to. The site has been largely associated with conservative and right-wing groups and interests, many of which have been banned from other crowdfunding platforms.

History

On February 8th, 2016, Dickinson launched WeSearchr along with conservative journalist Chuck Johnson.

In May, political cartoonist Ben Garrison posted a cartoon commissioned for the site, featuring Dickinson and Johnson standing over corpses of various political interest groups depicted as various wild animals (shown below).^[2]

was launched.^[1]

Controversies

Election Fraud Campaign

On October 25th, 2016, the site launched a page to fund efforts to fight “election fraud” in the 2016 United States presidential election. That day, the campaign reached the front page of the /r/The_Donald subreddit.^[5]

James Damore’s Google Manifesto Campaign

On August 8th, the site launched a page to collect donations for James Damore, a software engineer who had been fired the previous day for authoring a memo criticizing some of Google’s diversity initiatives.^[6] Within one week, the campaign received upwards of $48,000 of its $60,000 goal.

Search Interest

External References

About

Racist Mario is the name of a viral YouTube animation which features Mario playing Mario Kart against other video game characters, including characters from non-Nintendo games. Mario ends up going into a fury because of the unwanted newcomers and brutally murders most of the racers. The video received popularity almost instantly, gaining over 74 million views in little over one year.^[1]

Origin

On August 5th, 2014, YouTuber Flashgitz uploaded Racist Mario on YouTube. The animation features Mario racing around a track with Nintendo and non-Nintendo characters. Mario gets fed up that the non-Nintendo characters are invading kingdom and that the Nintendo characters aren’t fighting them. To fight back, Mario attempts to kill all of the characters but dies when Kratos stabs him, ending his killing spree. As of August 15, 2017, the animation has over 129 million views.^[2]

Spread

Due to the surprising nature of the video, it was commonly shared through social media and reacted to by various reaction channels on YouTube. The first reaction video was by YouTuber Ratchet Noblewolf (shown below, left). It has over 545,000 views as of August 16th, 2017.^[3] The most popular one was made by The Fine Brothers (shown below, right). It has over 19 million views as of August 16th, 2017.^[4]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

Overview

Knowyourmeme whitelist refers to the whitelist feature on Knowyourmeme, which is criticized for both being annoying, and being easily blockable by third-party software, like uBlock Origin.

Background

On August 15th, 2017, it was announced in a thread^[1] that a new obnoxious message would be made, and used on viewers who used adblocking software. The response, was heavily negative.

Developments

Criticism

The whitelist message was extremely criticized, with users being angry, many users complained that it was annoying, others saying that the ads on the site were harmful, and auto-playing. So they kept their adblock on. Others saying that it should only be on certain pages, however, it was still not removed from the site.

Ability to be disabled

It didn’t take long for users on Knowyourmeme, to notice that the message was easily disabled by the third-party plugin, uBlock Origin. With the user, Super_Noodle, even making an image about how to block the message on uBlock^[2].

Search Interest

External References

About

Wrow is a stylization of “wow,” which was said in a popular Vine video by a man acting sarcastically impressed by a nearby girl vaping. It inspired some remixes and art and is considered one of the best Vines on the platform.

Origin

On February 26th, 2015, Vine user Jared Friedman^[1] posted a video in which a girl is seen vaping at a party. A man then turns to the camera and expresses his mock amazement by saying “wrow.” The below YouTube embed has over 54,000 views.

Spread

The Vine grew into one of the most popular Vines on the platform, amassing over 453,000 likes and 226,7000 revines. It’s popularity inspired some popular spinoff memes. On May 26th, 2015, Tumblr user macintoshjosh^[3] made glitch art of the Vine, gaining over 13,000 notes (shown below, left). Two years later, ssttaarr-rroovviinngg^[4] made a Cocaine, Marijuana, Beer edit using a still from the Vine that gained over 7,400 notes (shown below, right).

The Vine has also been included in several “best vine” threads on Twitter. On October 27th, 2016, Twitter user @broderick^[2] included in a thread of great Vines, where it gained over 2,500 retweets and 4,600 likes. User @wallscouldtalk^[5] did the same on April 20th, 2017, gaining over 6,500 retweets and 13,000 likes. Meanwhile, people on YouTube made remixes of the Vine, though none were able to gain over 1,000 views (examples shown below).

Search Interest

External References

About

Go Ahead, Justify This refers to a series of image macros based on a tweet by fugitive American system administration Edward Snowden. The tweet, which reads “Go Ahead, Justify This,” captions an absurd and humorous picture that either comments on a real world event or simply makes a surreal joke.

Origin

On July 21st, 2016, Edward Snowden^[1]tweeted a news report on Charles Kinsey, an elderly African American and therapist, who was aiding an autistic patient, shot by police while lying on the ground with his hands visible. Snowden captioned the video “Go ahead, justify this,” rhetorically asking for an explanation for police shooting an unarmed man. The tweet (shown below) received more than 7,000 retweets and 7,400 likes.

Spread

On October 6th, ShitpostBot 5000^[2] user PRINCESSPUDDING posted a template of the meme, including just Snowden’s caption and a blank space for am image. The user titled the image “SnowdenJustify.”

A week later, Facebook^[3] user Shitposthony Botano posted the caption with a picture of YouTuber and meme reviewer Anthony Fantano.

On March 25th, 2017, Facebook^[4] user AshenKnightBoyd posted a statement from the video game website Kotaku, explaining an issue with the Dark Souls video game. The post (shown below, left) received more than 75 reactions and 16 shares in five months.

Five months later, Redditor^[5] dankbob_memepants_ posted a variation of the meme featuring Jake Paul’s YouTube subscriber numbers in the /r/MemeEconomy subreddit under the thread “I see potential in this format.” The post (shown below, right) received more than 730 points (97% upvoted) and 25 comments in 17 hours.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

On November 23, 2013, A video was uploaded to Youtube named “I got electrocuted” by Bob Meuse. It is well known for the goofy “Uh oh” said at the beginning and “Saraaaah” in the near middle. We do not know what happened to him after the video, This video seemed to get more popularity after the youtuber “Chills” it in his countdown video of youtubers who got hurt on camera.“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgoODOS34FE”

About

Hoodie Melo refers to a parody of Evil Kermit featuring basketball player Carmelo Anthony of the New York Knicks. After Anthony was seen wearing a hooded sweatshirt to practice during the 2017 offseason, jokes began spreading that the “Hoodie Melo” was the darker, more sinister side of Carmelo Anthony, much like how the hooded Kermit the Frog represented the darker, more sinister side in the Evil Kermit meme.

Origin

In the 2017 NBA offseason, New York Knicks basketball player Carmelo Anthony was filmed several times practicing in a hooded sweatshirt, or “hoodie.” The first time “Hoodie Melo” was posted online was on May 19th, in an Instagram video by workout coach Chris Brickley (shown below).

A post shared by Chris Brickley (@cbrickley603) on May 19, 2017 at 5:44pm PDT

On August 16th, 2017, SB Nation^[1] posted an article compiling videos of “Hoodie Melo” working out and showing some impressive basketball skills, leading to a joke idea that “Hoodie Melo” was a super-powered version of the real Carmelo Anthony. The same day, the Twitter account @SBNationNBA^[2] posted an Evil Kermit parody with Hoodie Melo, gaining over 2,800 retweets and 4,800 likes (shown below).

Spread

@SBnationNBA then invited fans to create their own versions of the meme in a follow-up tweet.^[3] Most of the jokes received in response referenced frustrations Knicks fans have long had with Anthony, such as his penchant for playing “isolation-style,” a style where he holds on to the basketball for a long time before shooting a mid-range jump shot. For example, a popular tweet by @A_A_Ron_Rodgers^[4] with this joke gained over 2,000 retweets (shown below, left). Others referenced Anthony’s tenuous relationship with New York and Knicks management. A tweet by @reydearmas^[5] referencing the “banana boat,” a hypothetical scenario in which NBA stars Chris Paul, Dwayne Wade, Lebron James, and Anthony would be on the same team, gained over 240 retweets (shown below, right). The jokes were featured in a Twitter Moment^[6] the following morning.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

Overview

Martin Shkreli Fraud Trial is a criminal trial that found controversial pharmaceutical entrepreneur Martin Shkreli guilty of three counts of securities fraud.

Background

In December 2015, Martin Shkreli, the infamous former pharmaceutical CEO made famous for raising the price of Daraprim, a $13.50 HIV medication to $750 overnight, was arrested on securities fraud and wire fraud charges, unrelated to the Daraprim controversy.^[1] Prosecuters accused Shkreli of “funneling money from MSMB Capital and MSMB Healthcare investors” to the drug company he used to run, Retrophin, between 2009 and 2014. Shkreli then used the money from Retrophin to pay them back.^[2]

On June 26, 2017, Shkreli’s trial began. He faced up 20 years prison on eight counts of fraud.

Search Interest

External References

Overview

Liberal Twitter Emoji War refers to infighting amongst democrats and leftists on Twitter who make their political stance known via certain emojis.

Background

Rose Emoji

The trend started in the 2016 Democratic Presidential Primary, as supporters of Bernie Sanders added a rose emoji to their Twitter display name. The rose is a symbol used by the Democratic Socialists of America,^[2] who use the symbol because it was used in the 19th century by socialists and trade unionists as a show of solidarity.^[1] Keith Spencer explained to Mashable:^[2]

“I thought it seemed like a good idea to help us find each other. It has the added benefit of being subtle enough that you can identify yourself as a socialist without, say, a random stranger noticing and then trolling you for it.”

Developments

Wilted Rose Emoji

Hillary Clinton supporters, frustrated at Sanders supporters because they believe the Sanders campaign played a large part in her defeat in the 2017 United States Presidential Election, mocked the rose emoji by adding a wilted rose emoji to their handles. This was in turn mocked by leftists who believed the wilted rose was fitting as it illustrated the lack of conviction in the neoliberal left.

Corncob Emoji

The corn cob emoji became a pejorative emoji mocking political centrists in the summer of 2017 when Corn Cobbed became slang meaning to lose a social exchange and insist that you have not lost the exchange. Its origin is a Dril tweet posted on November 20th, 2011 (shown below).

“Corn cobbed” began becoming popular slang towards the end of June of 2017 as it caught the attention of political pundits who did not understand the meaning of the term. On June 26th, 2017, Twitter user @_Chilladelphia responded to a thread by centrist pundit Candice Aiston regarding health care with an image of her eyebrows replaced by corn cobs (shown below, left). Aiston responded by dismissing the poster as a Berniebro. User @ironghazi reposted her tweet with the label “CORNCOBBEDONLINE” written over it (shown below, right).

Discourse around the term grew popular again in the beginning of August of 2017. On August 2nd, journalist Yashar Ali tweeted an image of Kamala Harris, a rumored democratic candidate for the 2020 Presidential Election, that called her the “Centrist Corncob” candidate. Ali noted how it was remarkable how the “Bernie SandersCrew” had mobilized against Harris (shown below, left). Centrist pundit Al Giordano quoted the tweet stated that the term had homophobic and rape culture origins (shown below, right). The same day, Neera Tanden, a chief strategist on the Hillary Clinton campaign in the 2016 United States Presidential Election did the same. Both were mocked for misunderstanding the term.

Donut Emoji

Neoliberal and centrist tweeters adopted the Donut emoji as a symbol following an event in which Nina Turner, president of Our Revolution, a political group which aims to continue the progress made by the Bernie Sanders campaign, was barred from entering the Democratic National Committee’s Washington D.C. headquarters on July 25th, 2017.^[3] Turner recounted how the group was blocked from entering via a barricade, but was handed “donuts and water,” which she particularly found insulting.

“They tried to seduce us with donuts and water. They’re pompous and arrogant enough to say to the people, ‘you’re not good enough to be on our property -- and, oh by the way, we’re just gonna hand you donuts and water over the barricade.’ That is insulting. Absolutely insulting.”

After Buzzfeed^[3] broke the story, Twitter account @HillaryWarnedUs^[4] encouraged “proud Democrats” to add a donut to their Twitter handle (shown below).

This trend was intensely criticized by leftists who saw the donut emoji as a celebration of the silencing of a politically prominent black woman, particularly when the same people had recently accused those who criticized Kamala Harris, a black woman, of being racist.

The history of the so-called “emoji war” was covered by The Daily Dot^[5] on August 17th, 2017.

Search Interest

Unavailable

External References

About

Tucker’s Thoughts refers to a series of exploitables based on a segment of the news commentary TV series Tucker Carlson Tonight. In the segment, Carlson attempts to explain the commonality of slavery in the world prior to the Civil War using several digital panels to help highlight his main points. People online then photoshopped different words on the panels to mock and parody the segment.

Origin

On August 15th, 2017, Tucker Carlson devoted the first part of his series Tucker Carlson Tonight on the “Fox News”/memes/subcultures/fox-news network discussing the Durham Statue Toppling, in which a group of activists forcibly removed a number of statues commemorating Confederate soldiers and generals.^[1] During the segment, Carlson argues that the slavery was common during the time of the Civil War, using a series of digital panels (video below) to highlight his main points, which read “Slavery is evil,” “Until 150 Years Ago, Slavery Was Rule,” “Plato, Mohammed, Aztecs All Owned Slaves,” and Slaveholding Common Among North American Indians."

Spread

During the broadcast, Twitter ^[2] user @benjacobs tweeted a picture of a television with Tucker and the four panels on the screen with the caption “Fox News just now.” The post (shown below) received more than 4,100 retweets and 6,800 likes in 48 hours.

Search Interest

External References

^[1]YouTube – Tucker: If we erase the past, prepare for the consequences

^[2]Twitter – @benjacobs’ Tweet

About

Jeb Wins refers to an exploitableelectoral college map parody featuring Jeb Bush celebrating in front of an electoral college map where he has won all 538 electoral college votes. After the original image spread before the 2016 United States Presidential Election, its concept has been used as a meme in various other elections across the globe and has been turned into an exploitable in which Bush is replaced with various other characters.

Origin

On September 14th, 2016, a user on /r/The_Donald submitted the original edit, gaining 68 points.^[1] The user has since deleted their account (shown below).

Spread

The image became more popular as the November 8th presidential election approached, and again immediately after the election. On the night of the election, Redditor SyntheticStupidity^[2] posted the picture to /r/dankmemes, gaining over 23,000 points. On the 9th, Xanthous_King^[3] uploaded the image to /r/teenagers, gaining over 3,800 points. The image’s popularity led to spinoffs used for various other elections around the globe. For example, during the 2017 UK Election, a Jeb edit featuring a map of the United Kingdom was posted to /r/The_Donald on April 21st, 2017,^[4] gaining over 2,900 points (shown below, left). On May 8th,^[5] in reference to the 2017 French Presidential Election, an edit featuring a map of France featuring Jeb was also posted to the subreddit.

The original image has also turned into an exploitable in which Jeb is replaced with various other characters. For example, on the night of the United States presidential election, Redditor SincerelySpiffy^[7] published an edit to /r/dankmemes in which Jeb was replaced with Waluigi, gaining over 430 points (shown below, left). Another popular edit referenced the popularity of Sonic Mania and was published by Tumblr user thequebecninja^[6] on August 15th, 2017, gaining over 1,800 points (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

Santiago is a meme most often used by fans of the YouTube channel Pamtri. The meme is often used in this format:

Person 1: “(Person 2), (Thing they did), now you must die.”

Person 2: “S A N T I A G O”

This meme is very popular in the comment section of Pamtri videos. The charactar Santiago, most of the time, does nothing but shoot people and say his name.

Origin

The origin of the character Santiago came from Pamtri’s video ‘Who Killed Santiago’, but the format the meme is used in originated from Pamtri’s video ‘The Lorax In a Nutshell’.

Spread

This meme was used in almost all the Pamtri videos after ‘The Lorax in a Nutshell’. Fans of Pamtri started to catch on to the Santiago line pretty quicly after that, and it was used in the comments of videos on Pamtri’s channel.

External References:

The Lorax in a Nutshell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIOWGCPRIp0

Who Killed Santiago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=makgt13kukA&t=2s

Pamtri’s Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYBP_TtboAYP28U3ZVNM9Ig

LGTM (“Looks Good To Me”) is a positive response to a request for approval, particularly code reviews for software. It’s associated with GitHub, being the most common short comment on there, though it actually dates back to the era when open source projects primarily used mailing lists to submit code. It is also commonly used in other informal situations where suggestions are being signed off on.

Origin

The true origin is hard to trace, though the first use of the LGTM stamp is in 2008.

The Rubber Stamp

The earliest memetic (as opposed to just being a cliche) use of LGTM is the Rubber Stamp, designed to contrast the official-ness of the stamp with the unofficial sound of the phrase “looks good to me.” It also reflects the idea that the reviewer looked at the code but hasn’t attempted to test or prove it correct, essentially meaning that they’ve “rubber stamped” it. Since 2012, they can be bought online.

Reaction Images and GIFs

The lgtm.in website was created in July 2013, according to the Wayback Machine. Since they work so much better in websites than mailing lists, the introduction of LGTM reaction gifs probably matches up with the migration from mailing lists to web-based code review tools like GitHub’s “Pull Request V2” system (the old version of pull requests didn’t support conversations).

Google Trends

Meme originating from u/Nibbink’s self aware robot comic on reddit

Other versions:

About

Tim Allen’s Evolution Tweet refers to a series of parody tweets mocking a post by comedian and actor Tim Allen, questioning the fundamental tenants of evolutionary science.

Origin

On August 16th, 2017, comedian and actor Tim Allen tweeted^[1]“If we evolved from apes why are there still apes.” The tweet (shown below) received more than 14,500 retweets and 48,600 likes in less than 48 hours.

Spread

Shortly after Allen posted his tweet, Twitter user @michaelaranger answered question. In a series of tweets, he said:

“Us & today’s “apes” evolved from a common ancestor, different from both of us. Technically we split once, came together again & split again. That last common ancestor looked & acted more like what we think of as ape than us, but it wasn’t an ape of today.Why are we balder/smarter? In short, evolution is driven by environment & death. Our ancestor’s environments caused the weaker ones to die & stronger to propagate. If a species’ environment is less difficult, it might change less- less “fit” traits don’t die out as quick. Among other reasons, this is why species with a common ancestor can diverge from that ancestor at different rates. Also, humans are considered apes too👍."

The tweets (shown below) received more than 275 retweets and 4,500 likes.

Search Interest

External References

Overview

The 2017 Barcelona Attacks refer to a series of terror attacks that occurred in late August 2017 when 14 people were killed and another 100 were injured.

Background

On August 16th, 2017, an explosion occurred at a house in Alcanar, Spain, killing one woman and injured six other people. The following day, a white Fiat Talento van crashed into a large group of pedestrians on La Rambla street in Barcelona. Following the attack, a suspect stabbed a civilian to death while fleeing the scene with another suspect. On August 18th, an Audi A3 car drove into a crowd of pedestrians in Cambrils, killing one civilian and injuring six others. Police subsequently shot and killed five suspected terrorists who exited the vehicle.

Developments

ISIS Response

Following the vehicle attack in Barcelona, ISIS claimed responsibility claimed responsibility via the Amaq News Agency.^[1]

Suspects

Police detained four people in connection with the attack in Cambrils and announced they believed the incident was related to both the Barcelona car attack and the explosion in Alcanar.^[1]

Online Reactions

On August 17th, posts about the Barcelona attack reached the front page of the /r/worldnews^[2] and /r/news^[3] subreddits.

Donald Trump’s Response

On August 17th, United States president Donald Trump posted a tweet condemning the attack (shown below).^[5]

Shortly after, Trump encouraged Twitter followers to “study what General Pershing of the United States did to terrorists when caught”, claiming “there was no more Radical Islamic Terror for 35 years!” (shown below).^[6]

That day, The Washington Post^[4] reported that Trump was referred to rumors that Pershing had dipped bullets in pigs’ blood used to execute jihadists in the Philipines, noting that several fact-checkers had determined the rumors were unsubstantiated.

Search Interest

External References

Overview

Confederate Statue Removals Controversy refers to the debate surrounding the removal of statues honoring the Confederate States of America, the group of states which seceded from the United States of America in the 1860s, leading to the American Civil War. After the violence that resulted from the 2017 Unite the Rally, an event originally started as a protest of the removal of a statue of confederate general Robert E. Lee, a debate raged in cities across the United States as well as online of what Confederate statues represented. Many statues were removed by cities and one was notably removed by a group of protestors. Comments from President Donald Trump and conservative activists sparked memes regarding the debate on whether Confederate Statues were pieces of history or symbols of white nationalism.

Background

The 2017 Unite the Right Rally, held in Charlottesville, Virginia the evening of August 11th, 2017 and into August 12th, began as a protest of the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. The protest turned violent as the protestors and leftist counter-protestors represented by groups such as Antifa and Democratic Socialists of America clashed, notably resulting in the death of leftist counter-protestor Heather Heyer after a driver drove a car into a mass of counter-protestors.

Developments

Trump Comments

In the span of three days, President Trump first condemned the violence “on both sides.” He then said the following day, “Racism is evil. And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the K.K.K., neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.” The following day, Trump doubled down on his first comments stressing the so-called alt-left was just as much to blame for the violence in Charlottesville as the white supremacists.

Durham Statue Toppling

On August 14th, 2017, two days after the 2017 Unite the Right Rally, leftist protestors in Durham, North Carolina tore down a statue outside of the old Durham County Courthouse honoring “the boys who wore the gray,” referring to the uniform of the confederate army. The statue had stood since 1924, 60 years after the Civil War, and was erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The statue fell to the ground and crumpled (video shown below).

While some online echoed the appall of some conservatives, the majority of popular online reactions celebrated the protestors. Several popular tweets used the image of the crumpled statue as a reaction image, while others parodied conservative responses to the event by posting different statues, defending them as “conservative monuments” (examples shown below). These jokes were covered by The Fader.

Other Confederate Statue Removals

Following the Rally, dozens more Confederate statues were removed across the United States. As of August 18th, 2017, statues in Baltimore, Brooklyn, Gainesville, and New Orleans have been removed, and proposals to remove statues in several other cities exist.^[1]

Online Reactions

Before the Liberals Find a Reason to Deface This Statue

On August 14th, 2017, actor James Woods tweeted a picture of the United States Marine Corps War Memorial, also known as the “Iwo Jima Memorial,” with the caption “Before the #liberals find a reason to deface, destroy or degrade this one, I thought some of you might like to see it one more time…” (shown below). The tweet gained over 13,000 retweets and 28,000 likes.

Several hours after Woods’ tweet, dozens of Twitter users began to parody it by posting pictures of humorous and less iconic statues using his caption. One of the first notable examples was posted by @leftisbestwing, who used an image of a statue of the Jolly Green Giant, gaining over 150 retweets and 950 likes (shown below, left). One of the most popular examples was tweeted by @spookperson, who used the caption with an image of an inflatable buttplug, gaining over 820 retweets and 3,700 likes (shown below, right).

Trump “Beautiful Statues” Tweet

On August 17th, 2017, Trump delivered a series of tweets claiming that the statues represented America’s history, and that while one can’t change history, they can learn from it (shown below).

History: Statue Equivocation

Search Interest

External References

Overview

Juggalo March on Washing 2017 refers to a protest led by the rap musical duo the Insane Clown Posse against the Federal Bureau of Investigation classifying their fans, “The Juggalos,” as a gang. The FBI’s classification has led to Juggalos recieving increased punishment for criminal activity, loss of jobs and other legal discrimination, despite the group’s insistance that they are not a gang.

Background

Developments

Search Interest

About

Patrick Star Wallet refers to a scene from Spongebob Squarepants in which the character Patrick Star attempts to teach a lesson about morality to the villainous Man Ray. In the scene, Man Ray role-plays giving back Patrick’s lost wallet. However, Patrick denies the wallet is his despite Man Ray’s logical reasoning, causing Man Ray to revert to anger. The scene has been parodied and turned into an exploitable in which the characters and dialogue are altered to make different kinds of points.

Origin

The scene appears in the episode “Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy III,” which aired November 27th, 2000^[1] (shown below).

An image macro of the scene appeared online in the mid-2010s. An example was posted on Imgur on July 21st, 2013,^[2] though the image had been circulating online prior.

Spread

The image began to grow into an exploitable in the summer of 2016. On August 1st, one of the earliest examples was posted to Imgur, ^[3] in which Patrick is represented as an Xbox and Man Ray is represented as a gamer. The post has been viewed over 40,000 times (shown below).

The exploitables soon adopted a political tone, as people satirized their frustrations with opposing viewpoints by representing the opposing viewpoint as Patrick. For example, a popular edit satirizing Not My President Democrats has Patrick agreeing to all the conditions that would make Donald Trump one’s president, then staunchly denying that Trump is his president^[4] (shown below, top). From the other side, a GIF of the scene in which Patrick represents the Alt-Right gained over 139,000 views on Imgur (shown below, bottom).^[5]
Political edits have made up the majority of the edits, though there have been examples featuring different topics, particularly video games.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References