Crab Holding Up a Fish

Submission 14,704

About

Crab Holding Up a Fish is a viral photograph of a small crab holding up an anchovy above its body. In early July 2022, the photograph went viral on Twitter and Reddit, where it was used as source material for photoshops and pop culture references.

Origin

On May 25th, 2022, Twitter^[1] user @Clairpha posted a photograph of a crab holding an anchovy above its body with its claws (post and photograph shown below). The photograph gained over 18,000 retweets and 37,100 likes in six weeks.

The photograph did not go viral until July 8th, 2022, when Twitter^[2] user @nemerevermore posted the photograph, writing, "I've been looking at this picture all day. I just find it pleasing." The post received over 129,500 retweets and 1 million likes in threee days (shown below).

Spread

In the following hours, the photograph achieved viral status on Twitter and Reddit as multiple users tweeted about it, made memes, edits and shared fan art of the photograph. For example, on July 9th, 2022, Twitter^[3] user @lauren__moore_ posted the photograph side-by-side with a SpongeBob Squarepants frame of Mr. Crabs holding up Fred the Fish, writing, "life imitates art." The post gained over 170,000 retweets and 1.2 million likes in three days (shown below, left). Later that day, Redditor^[4] AdventurousAd5447 made an identical post in the /r/BikiniBottomTwitter subreddit, where it gained over 81,600 upvotes in three days.

On July 8th, 2022, Redditor^[5] luvintheride lauched a Photoshop battle based on the photograph, with the post accumulating over 45,300 upvotes in three days (submissions shown below, center and right).