Craig the Halo Infinite Brute

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About

Craig the Halo Infinite Brute refers to a nondescript Brute enemy from the 2020 video game Halo Infinite. The character, who was nicknamed "Craig" in meme communities on Facebook and Reddit, was pulled from a screenshot of the livestream demo during the Xbox Games Showcase event in July 2020 and spread online shortly after as part of the discussion surrounding Halo Infinite’s graphics quality.

Origin

The original image used in the meme is taken from the eight-minute demo of Halo Infinite that was shown during the Xbox Games Showcase event on July 23rd, 2020. The scene of Craig appears towards the middle of the video around the 4:05 mark (seen below). In the clip, Master Chief is battling two Brutes that descend from the air in drop pods. When one of these runs towards him, the player shoots off his helmet, revealing Craig’s face before he melees and kills him.

On July 23rd, Facebook user Ali Kay posted the earliest known instance of someone calling the Brute "Craig." At about 11 am that morning, they wrote in the Halo Plasmaposting,^[9] "We're calling this dude Craig idc what you say" (shown below, left). The post received more than 1,500 reactions and 290 comments in less than one week (shown below, left). About two hours later, Redditor^[1] weirdusernamebutok on July 23rd, uploaded an image of the Brute to the /r/okbuddyretard subreddit with the caption, “This is Craig” (shown below, right).

Spread

Craig continued to spread in the following days after the trailer was released, particularly on Reddit’s /r/HaloMemes sub. On July 23rd, Redditor^[2] Spartans188 posted a meme of Craig depicted as Shrek, receiving over 800 upvotes in 24 hours (seen below). Redditor^[3] Potato_Blues23 posted a Wojak version of Craig to the /r/HaloMemes subreddit shortly after and received over 1,700 upvotes and 100 comments in less than 24 hours.

On Twitter, Craig also appeared in a number of memes, including a tweet^[4] from Brian Jarrard, community director at 343 Industries, on July 23rd. In the tweet, Jarrard said, “So are we in agreement the poor deadpan Brute is named Craig? I now really want to know more about Craig …” and received over 2,600 likes. Shortly after, Twitter^[5] user and YouTuber Justin Whang tweeted about Craig, including a variant of the Brute edited to look like a character from Thundercats, which received over 1,200 likes in less than 24 hours (shown below).

On July 24th, eBaum’s World^[6] published a collection of Craig memes under the title, “‘Craig’ from Halo Infinite Is Gamers Latest Popular Meme,” which included 33 different examples. Shortly after, Meme Insider’s Instagram^[7] account made a post referencing the meme with the caption “As anticipated, new Halo means new memes! Buy Craig now!” and received over 1,000 likes in roughly an hour.

On July 24th, YouTuber^[8] Rat Co. uploaded a video meme to their channel (seen below) under the title “Halo Infinite Monke Meme (Craig),” which features the original demo clip remixed with the song, “Ameno.”