Backing Up the Car

Submission 36,717

Part of a series on Exploitables. [View Related Entries]

About

Backing Up the Car refers to a four-panel image of a driver backing up his car after getting in the vicinity of a certain location. Online, the image has been used as a Things I Don't Like exploitable, as well as a reference to Nope situations.

Origin

On March 1st, 2019, Instagram user powerlessbybr posted a four-panel image featuring himself putting a car in reverse after reaching a fork in the road, with one road leading to Resident Evil's Raccoon City and the other to Silent Hill. The post gained 55 likes in six months.^[8]

Spread

On March 2nd, 2019, Funnyjunk user tehcashew reuploaded the meme to the website, where it gained over 2,100 likes in one month.^[1] On the same day, multiple Funnyjunk users posted edits of the meme in the comment section of the original post (examples shown below).^[1] Also on March 2nd, Facebook group The Secret Society of Black Superheroes posted an edit of the meme, which received over 6,400 likes and 15,000 shares on the platform.^[9]

On March 3rd, Redditor JackNVodka reposted the image to /r/memes subreddit, where it gained over 22,400 upvotes in one month.^[2] On March 4th, Tumblr account catchymemes reposted the image, with the post accumulating over 11,000 likes and reblogs in one month.^[3]

In the following month, several versions of the image were posted on Reddit. For example, a post made by Redditor epicchili on March 30th gained over 32,200 upvotes in two weeks (shown below, left).^[4] Another post, made by Redditor other-world-leee on April 4th,^[5] received over 8,000 upvotes in one week (shown below, right).

In April 2019, the image gained significant popularity on Instagram, with notable posts made by labrynth.mp4,^[6] bonelessweeb^[7] and other users.