What's Up With The Blue Grinch Saying 'That Feeling When Knee Surgery Is Tomorrow'? The Oddly Specific Meme Explained

If you've been inundated lately with photos of a smirking Blue Grinch saying, "That Feeling When Knee Surgery Is Tomorrow," you have come across an oddly specific meme that is caked in layers of irony.

What began as a fringe internet trend, and likely an inside joke between a few niche meme pages, has suddenly exploded on TikTok this year, with photos of a blue-tinted grinch smirking about his upcoming knee surgery absolutely taking over people's FYPs.

Here's where the meme originates, and why people continue to find humor in it several years on.

Where Did 'That Feeling When Knee Surgery Is Tomorrow' Memes Come From?

While one can imagine that someone getting knee surgery can be excited about the prospect of being in better health and having more mobility, the humor in the "TFW Knee Surgery Is Tomorrow" likely comes from how oddly specific the meme is and the nostalgia factor brought in by its Impact font captions.

The earliest known iteration of the meme takes the form of a classic ironic meme, but it is still unclear if it was made to sincerely celebrate one's upcoming knee surgery. First created by a MemeCreator.org user before April 2021, the photo of an elated squirrel alongside text about knee surgery was posted to the Instagram page @stupid.fricken.meme on April 6th, 2021.

The earliest known variation of this meme was posted to Reddit by Redditor /u/ZyeAxe on August 2nd, 2021, showing a low-quality image of Drake used as the header for a listicle promising to show you over 25 memes about knee surgery. The post may have also inspired /r/Kneesurgerymemes, a subreddit created on the same date.

Where Did The Blue Grinch Knee Surgery Meme Come From?

More knee surgery memes began making the rounds in 2022, with iFunny user Tidus posting a version of the meme featuring a character from Azumanga Daioh.

But the most viral iteration of the meme was posted on March 14th by Instagram user blinch.feels, a page dedicated to memes about a blue-tinted Grinch.

The post gathered over 1,000 likes in a year and went on to become a hit on the subreddits /r/KneeSurgeryMemes and /r/OddlySpecific. The next day, it was then reposted by Instagram user grubburd to the tune of 85,000 likes.

Seriously, What Is Up With All The Blue Grinch Knee Surgery Memes?

As it turns out, the image of a Blue Grinch smirking about his upcoming knee surgery really ticked some people's funny bones to the point where the subreddit /r/bluegrinchkneesurgery was created in November 2022. People then began posting memes in reference to this one particular variant back on the main Knee Surgery memes subreddit too.

In 2024, the Blue Grinch Knee Surgery meme saw a comeback on TikTok, with videos just featuring the meme gathering hundreds of thousands of views in days. It seems like at this point, the meme is being somewhat overshadowed by jokes about the meme itself, with people finding humor in oversaturating the image on the video-sharing app.

For the full history of That Feeling When Knee Surgery Is Tomorrow, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information.