Dependa

Submission 36,125

About

Dependa, also known as Dependapotamus, is a pejorative referring to the wives of military service people who live off of their spouse's earnings and are typically associated with being lazy and overweight.

Origin

On September 14th, 2008, Urban Dictionary^[9] user Daemion submitted an entry for "dependapotamus," defined as a "stay at home mom" who looks "remarkably similar to Jabba the Hut" (shown below).

Spread

In June 2013, the AntiDependa Facebook^[10] page was launched, which features an illustration of a "Dependapotumus Version 4.3" as a profile picture (shown below).

On January 14th, 2014, Urban Dictionary^[1] user ricebarbiee submitted an entry for "Dependa," defining it as a person who relies on their military husband for financial support (shown below).

On March 21st, Redditor nathanpaulyoung submitted a screenshot of a green text story on 4chan about a "Dependapotamus" trying to get into a public pool for free (shown below). Prior to being archived, the post received more than 1,700 (96% upvoted) and 70 comments on /r/4chan.^[8] On April 27th, the Dependa as Fuck Facebook^[11] page was created.

On November 2nd, the Dear Dependa Tumblr^[3] blog was launched, described as "a page dedicated to stupid shit Dependas say." On April 5th, 2015, Redditor TBCGirl posted a story about the overweight spouse of a military service person titled "Dependa Logic: Taking Candy From a Baby" to /r/fatpeoplestories.^[2] On September 19th, Imgur^[4] user JazzAxxxelrod submitted a gallery titled "For you troops out there, some funny dependa memes" (shown below).

On October 3rd, 2016, the Military Memes Facebook^[5] page posted a photograph of a woman doing pushups in front of a drill instructor with the caption "You said you're a servicemember too / Do work, Dependa!" (shown below, left). Within seven months, the post gained over 1,000 reactions and 140 shares. On November 19th, the Pop Smoke Facebook^[6] page posted an Evil Miss Piggy meme joking about the inner monologue of a Dependa (shown below, right). Within six months, the post received more than 9,900 shares, 5,700 reactions and 1,400 comments.

In March 2017, The Honest Dependa YouTube channel was launched, featuring various military-themed comedy sketches.^[7]On May 15th, Salon^[12] published an article describing "Dependa" as "an ugly meme" and "sexist stereotype."