Bad Acronyms

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About

Bad Acronyms are a series of jokes and photoshopped image macros where the words of an acronym do not match up with the letters of that acronym. An acronym is a mnemonic device where each letter in a word stands for another word (for example, the word "Scuba" is an acronym for for " S elf – C ontained U nderwater B reathing A pparatus). The jokes are generally used in shitposts.

Precursor

Before becoming an internet joke, several images of bad acronyms went viral online to decent spread (examples shown below).

Origin

While the origins of the Bad Acronym Shitpost aesthetic are unclear, posts on /r/MemeEconomy^[1] indicate the rise of the format began in March of 2017. On March 9th, Instagram user crit.a.cola^[2] uploaded an image macro that read "Yeah I'm G.A.Y. Grateful For Jesus," gaining over 1,600 likes (shown below).

Spread

Four days later, a deep fried version of the post was posted to /r/MemeEconomy.^[1] Several more edits^[3]^[4]^[5] appeared on the subreddit in the coming week as most users enthusiastically recommended "buying" into the format.

Over the following months, the format would remain in decent use with several popular reddit posts using the format. For example, on May 20th, user Trash_garbage_waste^[6] uploaded a variation with Pac-man using the Respect Women meme that gained over 7,200 points on the subreddit (shown below, left). On the 24th, user le kijf posted a deconstructed version to /r/coaxedintoasnafu,^[7] gaining over 900 points (shown below, right).