Whose Horse is That And Why Is It On A Balcony? The Bizarre Story Of The Juan Meme Explained

As Dr. Doofenshmirtz famously said, "Wow! If I had a nickel for every time I was doomed by a puppet, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice. Right?" Sometimes an image or event occurs that is so outlandish it becomes viral content all on its own, and doubly so when it happens twice. In this case, the fact that a bizarre image of a horse being coaxed onto a balcony going viral also happened twice marks a similar phenomenon of the unexplainable.

Although the first image of Juan the horse that was uploaded to the web failed to create a meme trend, the Mirror Online article of a man safeguarding his horse from thieves created all sorts of questions way back in 2014. Then, a year later, a Maltese horse on a balcony would begin to go viral. This image simmered for some time, occasionally appearing in photoshops, but would eventually become a breakout meme this year with a name on every user’s lips … "Juan."

Before the famous Instagram post of Juan, the uncropped image had some success on Tumblr, which shows how important editing can be to the success of a meme. The unedited image was first posted on Imgur in 2015 and its caption "Only in Malta" gave users the nationality of the mysterious horse. The now-iconic image first spread around Tumblr at the end of 2015 with a Comic Sans bottom text of “im not like the other girls.” Then, when Instagram user graphic.design.is.mypassion posted their meme in the summer of 2020, it garnered thousands of likes and helped introduce the image to a wider audience. The account was capitalizing on the What Animal You Are trend, but with a more absurd, cursed image quality to it.

The choice of graphic.design.is.mypassion to make the original into a cursed image is important to understanding the meme's spread in the following months. The very nature of the photo lends itself to the cursed image subgenre of things like SCPs or even creepypastas. Zoomed in, blurry and lacking solid context on how a horse was coaxed onto a second-story balcony, it’s important to note that cursed images don’t have to be creepy, just lacking any context that makes them seem surreal. Juan fits this perfectly, and examining graphic.design.is.mypassion’s other images reveal that they seem to specialize in using cursed content.

However, the true explosion of the meme would come from outside Instagram. The Spanish meme page Comediante triste posted a video using the cursed image, and the first Juan meme on Reddit followed soon after. Yet, the massively popular Star Wars edit would be what skyrocketed Juan into a dominant meme. Many memes that followed would be self-aware and self-referential to how Millennials and Zoomers indulge in strange, often absurdist humor. Juan would maintain its growth online into the fall and, without a doubt, be remembered as a breakout meme of 2020.

It’s likely that Juan would not have blown up if not for graphic.design.is.mypassion’s edit. Although the original Imgur image spread slightly around Tumblr, it never grew to its current success by any means. It’s speculative to say it would never trend, as the Internet is fickle, but it goes to show how meme trends rely on nostalgia, commonality as well as novelty.

The original by graphic.design.is.mypassion was capitalizing on a popular trend with the novel twist of cursed images. Then the big breakout meme on Reddit used a Star Wars image to hammer home the punchline … and the rest is history. Juan itself can only exist in the humor of memes and will exist as an excellent showcase of what makes memes go viral.

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