About

"Did I Stutter?" is a memorable quote uttered by the character Stanley from the American television series The Office. The line and a screenshot of Stanley saying the line has been used as a reaction image macro to express frustration toward having to repeat one's self.

Origin

On May 1st, 2008, NBC aired the episode of The Office entitled "Did I Stutter?"^[1] In the episode, Michael Scott repeatedly annoys his employee Stanley (played by Steve Carrell and Leslie David Baker, respectively) to participate in a group activity. After declining several times, Stanley snaps at Michael, "Did I stutter?"

The earliest avaialbe usage of clip as a meme was posted to GIPHY ^[2] on February 1st, 2014 (shown below). However, the page notes that Tumblr is the source.

Spread

Over the next few years, the phrase became associated with memes about Stanley, as well as a reaction image. For example, on August 29th, 2017, Redditor ^[3] consciouslyoblivious shared a variation of the He Protec But He Also Attac meme. The poist received more than 775 points (87% upvoted) in less than three years (shown below, left).

On November 2nd, 2018. Redditor^[4] 70hamsters shared a meme by @litcatholicmemes. The post received more than 45,000 points (94% upvoted) and 525 comments in less than two years (shown below, center).

On August 18th, 2019, Instagram ^[5] user @hummusmem3s shared a meme about hummus. The post received more than 2,000 likes in less than four months (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References