Anime Memes Replaced With Breaking Bad / Mikeposting

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Part of a series on Ironic Breaking Bad Memes. [View Related Entries]

About

Anime Memes Replaced With Breaking Bad refers to a series of memes that parody cringeworthy and unfunny anime memes by replacing one or several panels with images of characters from the television series Breaking Bad and its spin-off series Better Call Saul. Implementing elements from both ironic Breaking Bad Memes and Staring Animals memes, the format was popularized in late March 2022. The versions in which panels are replaced with Mike Ehrmantraut are known as Mikeposting, with Kid Named Finger being a subformat of that.

Origin

On March 13th, 2022, Redditor^[1] ToddChungus posted a collection of 20 memes taken from the /r/animemes subreddit in which they replaced the punchline panel with images of character Mike Erhmantraut from the Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul television series. The post received over 7,300 upvotes in the /r/okbuddychicanery subreddit in one month (images shown below). The ironic meme format that involves replacing panels in "normie" memes with non-sequitur imagery has seen use online at least since late 2018.

Spread

On March 14th, 2022, Twitter^[2] user @fishsticknudes reposted several images from the Reddit post in a thread, with the first tweet gaining over 1,100 retweets and 8,100 likes in one month.

Starting in mid-March, the format gained moderate popularity in the /r/okbuddychicanery subreddit, with users taking memes from the /r/animemes and /r/goodanimememes subreddits and replacing the punchline panels with characters from Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, with the format being referred to as "Mikeposting." For example, on March 14th, Redditor^[3] ApocalypticWalrus posted a collection of five such memes which received over 270 upvotes in the subreddit (one image shown below, left). On March 15th, Redditor^[4] TrableZ posted a collection of four memes, with the post gaining over 750 upvotes (one image shown below, right). On the same day, the /r/mikepost^[5] subreddit was created.

On March 23rd, 2022, content creator Thotti.yt posted a video compilation of original memes based on the format, with the video gaining over 289,000 views on YouTube^[6] and 13,600 views on Instagram in three weeks (shown below, left). Following the upload, the format achieved major popularity on YouTube. For example, on March 27th, YouTube^[7] user auby gaming – Fede posted a compilation of original memes that received over 370,000 views in two weeks (shown below, right).

Following the popularization of the meme format on YouTube, on April 11th, 2022, YouTuber^[8] Lessons in Meme Culture posted a video exploring the meme.

Kid Named Finger

Kid Named Finger is a parody meme format that combines elements of Mikeposting with the Kid Named X meme format and involves referring to Mike Ehrmantraut as "kid named finger" or "finger." The parody format gained initial popularity in the /r/okbuddychicanery subreddit in early April 2022 before spreading further in mid-May.