Dancing ASCII Man

About

Dancing ASCII Man is a text-based character of a Lenny Faced individual standing with both arms stretched like a figure skater. Since its initial appearance on Twitter in 2013, the ASCII remained in obscurity for many years before spawning a series of parodies in the summer of 2018.

Origin

The character first appeared on Twitter in the summer of 2013. On July 13th, Twitter user @SirBuraksson^[1] posted the character with the text" Bernaa," gaining 190 retweets and 600 likes (shown below).

Spread

Though the character was posted on Twitter in the following years, it did not begin seeing regular usage until the summer of 2018, when it was commonly paired with phrases having little to do with the character itself. Some popular examples of tweets using the character included it with various pop culture references. For example, an August 11th tweet by @L_valhalla referencing Pirates of the Caribbean gained over 890 retweets and 1,700 likes (shown below, left). Another posted the same day by @consultingbatch referencing Sherlock Holmes gained over 1,300 retweets and 2,200 likes (shown below, right).

Other users used the character as a vehicle for dark humor, juxtaposing the upbeat nature of the character with dark phrases. On August 16th, 2018, user @TheArtidote used the character with the phrase "I want to be loved but I'm afraid of everyone," gaining over 2,200 retweets and 6,300 likes (shown below, left). The account for music label Mad Decent used it with the phrase "I haven't gone to bed at a decent time in years," gaining over 170 retweets and 480 likes (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable

External References