Canon Events (Spider-Verse)

Submission 36,998

Part of a series on Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse. [View Related Entries]

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Editor's Note: This entry contains spoilers for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse; read at your own caution.

About

Canon Events, in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, are events that must happen to a given universe's Spider-Man, otherwise their universe faces destruction. Not every universe's Spider-Man has the same core events, although some are comparable at their core (for example, losing Uncle Ben or getting bitten by a radioactive spider). Following the release of the movie in June 2023, the concept of canon events inspired memes on sites like TikTok, Instagram and Twitter, including memes in which people apply the concept to events in their own lives and memes hypothesizing about a specific version of Spider-Man's canon events. On TikTok, the Spider-Man 2099 Miguel O'Hara theme is often used in memes about canon events.

Origin

On June 2nd, 2023, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse was released in theaters. In the movie, a future version of Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2099 aka Miguel O'Hara, explains the concept of canon events as events that need to happen to any given universe's Spider-Man to keep the Spider-Verse bonded together. If a canon event is somehow avoided by a Spider-Man, it can lead to the destruction of the Spider-Verse. Some canon events include Uncle Ben dying, the radioactive spider bite or, in the case of Miles Morales and Spider-Gwen, having their police captain father die protecting a child from a nemesis. Not every Spider-Man goes through the exact same canon events.^[1]^[2]

On the day the film was released, people online began posting memes referencing the concept of canon events. It is unclear who was the first person to make a meme using the concept, however, one of the earliest viral examples was a video posted by TikToker^[3] @greekos_nikos on June 2nd, 2023, captioned, "Realizing it was never trauma, just a canon event," garnering over 2 million views in six days (shown below). On June 3rd, Instagram^[4] user amazing_webheads posted a screenshot of the video, garnering over 7,400 likes in five days.

Spread

On June 4th, 2023, Instagram^[5] user codependent_papi posted an image macro of Miguel O'Hara climbing a wall captioned, "Fumbling that baddie was a canon event bro," garnering around 210 likes in four days (shown below). The meme gained viral spread over the following days, including a repost by Instagram^[6] user hoodniggademiks that same day, garnering over 19,000 likes in the same span of time.

On June 5th, Twitter^[7] user @B00K0FTRIBE posted an image of the alternate-universe Spider-Man "Spider-Cat," writing, "wtf was his canon event???" garnering over 42,000 likes in three days (shown below, left). On June 6th, Twitter^[8] user @banditocarly made a similar post about Widow,^[9] another alternate universe Spider-Man that is a horse, garnering over 2,500 likes in the same span of time (shown below, right).

On TikTok, the original sound^[10] for "Spider-Man 2099 (Miguel O'Hara)" became a popular source for memes about canon events. That day, TikToker^[11] @0verth0se posted a video referencing a canon event that gained over 5.1 million views in two days (shown below).

On June 7th, Twitter^[12] user @DatChaosGuy posted an image of Widow the Spider-Horse next to Mori Calliope, writing, "Spider-Horse’s canon event," a reference to the Mori Calliope Horse Audio, garnering over 17,000 likes in a day (shown below).