Why Are 'Yu-Gi-Oh Players' Posting An AI Image Of A Horse Throwing Up? The Pushback Against Konami And The Meme Format Explained

When it comes to nerd culture, there are many different subsects of groups with their own little quirks and identities attached to them.

Some groups, like MCU fans, may voice their disinterest in an upcoming movie or show by posting about what they think could have been done better. Other fans, like Whovians, may talk about their favorite arc within the show and what they liked about it.

Card gamers, however, like Yu-Gi-Oh! players, are proving they're a different beast entirely, as they have spent the past week spamming edited pictures of an AI-generated image of a brown horse puking in a gas station. The reason, however, may seem perfectly reasonable after you read this.

Where Did This Horse Image Come From?

The image of a vomiting horse, which was first posted en masse on Konami's social media posts, is an AI-generated image of just a horse in a store, appearing to throw up. How people knew that it was created by artificial intelligence was quite obvious because horses physically are incapable of throwing up, their throat muscles don't work that way.

However, for people unaware, the image was one that quickly became widely shared as people would gawk at the horse and be amazed at the grotesque image.

Why Is Konami Associated With This Meme?

Konami, the company behind the popular competitive trading card game Yu-Gi-Oh!, found itself in a strenuous situation recently. Within the current game, many players are currently unhappy about the state of the meta.

This means that the player base is upset at which cards are currently very strong, and is calling on the company to fix it by issuing a statement banning or restricting which cards are able to be played competitively.

Konami released a statement promising a new ban list by the end of August 2024, which led to players becoming more and more antsy as the month went on, wanting the ban list to happen already. Every time Konami made a post that wasn't about the ban list, hundreds of players would post the AI horse vomiting meme as their response — essentially telling Konami to hurry up.

What Did Konami Do To Get Trolled With The 'Horse Throwing Up' Meme?

After some time, before August 2024 was over, Konami did eventually release a ban list. This caused a lot of players, who previously posted images of the horse with different Yu-Gi-Oh characters photoshopped on top of it, to post newer images of the horse being either happy or pretending like the horse itself was a Yu-Gi-Oh card.

Some players who weren't happy with the ban list, however, for differing reasons, continued to post the horse, wanting further changes to be made to the trading card game.

For the full history of AI Puking Horse, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's entry for even more information.