Bart vs. Onion

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Part of a series on The Simpsons. [View Related Entries]

About

Bart vs. Onion refers to an online rivalry between NCAA B12 football teams, with some internet users changing their profile pictures to represent a sad-looking image of The Simpsons character Bart wearing a cap with their preferred football team's logo and others calling themselves onions. While the trend's origins are unclear, some internet users claim that a November 15th, 2023, match between the Texas Longhorns and the Iowa State Cyclones set off the trend, with Bart vs. Onion memes continuing into subsequent days.

Origin

On November 15th, 2023, X^[1] user @SteadyE69 posted encouraging his followers to "join the movement" by changing their profile picture to one of Bart Simpson with an NCAA football logo edited onto his hat. The post is the earliest known mention of the "Bart Cult," with many X users crediting @SteadyE69 for starting the trend.

X^[9] user @CycloneRetroSN appears to have kicked off the rival "Onion" trend later on November 15th (seen below). The user posted an image of an onion with the Iowa State football logo edited onto it.

Spread

Various X users changed their profile picture to one of Bart wearing a hat featuring a football team of their choice on November 15th, 2023,^[2]^[3]^[4] with other X^[5] users noting the influx of engagement from Bart profile picture users, such as a post by X user @Less_HumbleTeej (seen below).

Also on November 15th, X^[6] user @_the_kyle posted a meme about the trend, gathering over 400 likes in two days (seen below, left). That same day, the X^[7] account @nocontextcfb posted an AI-generated Bart vs. Onion meme, gathering over 2,000 likes in two days (seen below, right).

The Barstool Yak podcast discussed the Bart vs. Onion trend on November 16th, as seen in a post by X user @ReaganHuggins12 (seen below).^[8]