Buddha Teaching Followers

Submission 6,131

About

Buddha Teaching Followers is an exploitable image of a piece of artwork showing Buddha addressing his students from a rock.

Origins

The artwork of Buddha can be found on the wall of Viharn Sien at Chon Buri in Thailand, according to the image's page on Shutterstock (shown below, left).^[1]

On July 15th, 2016, Twitter ^[2] user @cormacrussell published the earliest known exploitable variation of the image. In the post, the image features a speech bubble with the statement, "The best way to become enlightened is to argue with people on Facebook (shown below, right).

Spread

The following week, Redditor ^[3] FleshAetus posted the image on the /r/justneckbeardthings subreddit. The post received more than 470 points (98% upvoted) in three years.

On July 17th, 2019, Redditor^[4] Jrome2002 posted a variation of the meme in the /r/dankmemes subreddit. The post received more than 70,000 points (86% upvoted) and 1,700 comments in 24 hours (shown below, left).

That day, Redditor^[5] PeeceKeaper posted the image with the expression "Cute girls better than hot ones." The post received more than 21,000 points (94% upvoted) and 350 comments in 24 hours (shown below, center).

The following day, Redditor^[6] posted an edited variation of the meme to feature characters from the video game Minecraft. Within 24 hours, the post received more than 22,000 points (96% upvoted) and 250 comments (shown below, right).