About

Bill Gates' Giant Ping Pong Paddle refers to an image macro series of Microsoft-founder Bill Gates playing table tennis with an oversized paddle as billionaire investor Warren Buffett watches. The image inspired memes about a tool that is too powerful for a particular job.

Origin

On May 6th, 2012, Gates and Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, appeared at the Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting. Following the meeting, the two played table tennis against Olympian Ariel Hsin.^[1]

That day, YouTuber Helen Jordon posted a video of the game. The post received more than 20,000 views in seven years (shown below).

Spread

On March 22nd, 2013, Redditor ^[2] brichard94 posted an image from the event on the /r/pics subreddit.

Seven years later, Redditor^[3] 0niMatt posted the image in the /r/hmmm subreddit. The post received more than 25,000 points (96% upvoted) and 150 comments (shown below, left).

The following day, Redditor^[4] Edisonen posted the image with the caption "Using a calculator to make sure 4+3 equals 7 on a test." The post received more than 77,000 points (95% upvoted) and 445 comments (shown below, center).

That day, Redditor^[5] dcxr posted a variation of the Literally No One meme. The post received more than 19,000 points (95% upvoted) and 135 comments in 24 hours (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References