Blue Grinch / That Feeling When Knee Surgery Is Tomorrow

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About

That Feeling When Knee Surgery Is Tomorrow or Blue Grinch Knee Surgery refers to a series of oddly specific ironic memes, mostly image macros, pairing images of excited or happy characters, most popularly an image of a blue Grinch, with the caption, "That feeling when knee surgery is tomorrow." Memes using the caption first started to become popularized in mid-2021 and became further popularized in 2022 after the blue Grinch variant of the meme went viral online.

Origin

On an unknown date prior to April 2021, a MemeCreator.org^[1] user created an image macro showing a squirrel with its arms in the air as if celebrating, captioned, "That feeling when knee surgery is tomorrow" (shown below). This is seemingly the first instance of the meme. On April 6th, 2021, Instagram^[2] user stupid.fricken.meme shared a slightly cropped version of the meme, garnering over 1,300 likes in two years.

On August 2nd, 2021, Redditor ZyeAxe posted a new meme using an image of Drake under the same caption to /r/okbuddyretard,^[3] garnering over 870 upvotes in two years (shown below). This is the earliest known variant of the meme. That day, the /r/Kneesurgerymemes^[4] subreddit was started.

Spread

The meme continued to spread throughout 2022. On January 16th, 2022, iFunny^[5] user Tidus posted a version of the meme that gained over 840 smiles in a year (shown below, left). On March 14th, Instagram^[6] user blinch.feels, a page dedicated to memes about a blue-tinted Grinch, posted a version of the meme using the blue Grinch's face, garnering over 1,100 likes in a year (shown below, right). This became the most popular version of the meme and has been reposted numerous times, including to /r/Kneesurgerymemes^[7] on October 23rd, 2022, gaining over 500 upvotes in six months, to /r/oddlyspecific^[8] on October 24th, garnering over 10,000 upvotes and by Instagram^[9] user grubburd that same day, garnering over 85,000 likes.

On November 2nd, 2022, the /r/bluegrinchkneesurgery^[10] subreddit opened. Following the virality of the blue Grinch version of the meme, people started posting memes referencing the specific variant on sites like /r/Kneesurgerymemes, becoming some of the subreddit's top most popular posts (examples shown below).

On February 9th, 2023, Instagram^[11] user blinch.feels posted a version of the meme showing someone send the blue Grinch version of the meme to a knee surgeon, garnering over 110,000 likes in two months (shown below). On April 18th, Twitter^[12] user @MemeHut1990 shared the original meme, garnering over 640 likes in a day.