Call Anonymously / Femboy Hotline

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Part of a series on Breaking Bad. [View Related Entries]

About

Call Anonymously refers to a scene from the crime drama series Breaking Bad in which protagonist Walter White (Bryan Cranston) tries to convince his lawyer Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) to make an anonymous call to the DEA. Starting in 2021, the clip has been used as an exploitable in video caption memes, with the clip achieving virality with a Femboy Hotline version listing the Rickroll number in late July 2022, which also spawned references.

Origin

On September 25th, 2011, episode 11 "Crawl Space" of season four of the crime drama series Breaking Bad premiered.^[1] In the episode, Walter White asks his lawyer Saul Goodman to make an anonymous call to the DEA, with Goodman refusing (scene shown below).

- Just call, call anonymously!
- You call anonymously!
- I can't, they know me, they know my voice, they'll know me, please, you gotta do it for me, I'm begging you. Please, please.

Prior to June 2nd, 2021, an unknown user posted a video caption meme that paired the clip with a screenshot of Google search results for "gay sex hotline." On June 2nd, 2021, Instagram^[2] user stankylegacademy made the earliest found repost of the meme, which gained over 6,800 views and 1,000 likes in one year (another reupload shown below). On July 14th, Instagram^[3] user that.2_mexican reposted the video, with the post accumulating over 82,000 views and 10,000 likes in one year.

Spread

The scene did not see further use in memes until June 19th, 2022, when Twitter^[4] gimmick account Breaking Bad Irony (@BreakingBadIrny) reposted it, with the tweet gaining over 165,300 views, 1,400 retweets and 13,000 likes in two months.

On June 20th, TikTok^[5] user sean.yy2001 posted the earliest derivative meme within the format, captioning the video with a fake Google search result for Big Tiddy Goth Girl Hotline that gained over 409,000 views and 61,700 likes in two months (shown below).

In the following days, the meme was widely circulated through reposts.^[6]^[7]

On June 23rd, 2022, Twitter^[8] user @asimbawe posted a Ryan Gosling meme based on the clip that gained over 73,400 views, 1,000 retweets and 6,300 likes in two months (shown below).

In the following weeks, more versions of the meme were spread. For example, on July 11th, 2022, iFunny^[9] user MongoloidWrangler reposted an Among Us version that received over 740 smiles in one month (author unknown; shown below, left). Prior to July 27th, an unknown user posted a Femboy version of the meme that received viral spread (shown below, right). For example, an August 7th, 2022, repost by Twitter^[10] gimmick account @hourly_shitpost received over 1.9 million views, 12,000 retweets and 100,600 likes in two days.

The number listed in the Femboy Hotline version of the meme plays "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley upon dialing, Rickrolling them.