Did We Beat X? No, That Was Y

About

Did We Beat X? No, That Was Y is a phrasal template used in a series of image macro and caption memes that powerscale characters from different franchises, particularly from competing anime fandoms, in a humorously exaggerated manner. The memes imagine a severely injuring protagonist from one franchise wondering if they managed to beat the protagonist from the other one, only to learn that the person they were actually fighting was a relatively weak secondary character. The format has been used since 2021, with versions of the meme often featuring Goku, Naruto and Kratos.

Origin

On March 25th, 2021, TikTok^[1] user @rofdennis posted a two-panel meme depicting Dragon Ball characters Goku and Vegeta lying on the ground, battered and exhausted, with Goku asking Vegeta if they managed to beat Naruto characters Naruto and Sasuke. Vegeta answers that they weren't fighting Sakura, a character who is generally considered weaker, not Naruto and Sasuke.

The post (shown below) garnered over 244,000 views and 33,500 likes in three years.

Spread

The post saw further spread in the following weeks through reposts. For example, on April 5th and 13th, 2021, the Facebook^[2][3] pages Animevslove and Dragon ball super fans both reposted the image.

On April 8th, 2021, Redditor strawwhatluffy posted the earliest found derivative meme within the format in the /r/MemePiece^[4] subreddit. The edit replaced Goku and Vegeta with Naruto and Sasuke, who opposed characters from One Piece. The post (shown below) received over 2,600 upvotes in three years.

In November 2022, versions featuring the injured, exhausted character Kratos from the God of War video game franchise gained popularity.

For instance, on November 15th, 2022, X^[5] user @feydemon made a meme imagining Kratos severely beaten by One Piece character Usopp, which garnered over 1,500 reposts and 10,000 likes in two years (shown below).

The format maintained popularity on Reddit, X and other social media in 2023 and 2024, with memes imagining experienced warriors and fighters being defeated by characters from comedy series such as SpongeBob SquarePants.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References