Do Not Eat Them 1 Cent Burgers From Wendy's / I Lost All My Skin

About

Do Not Eat Them 1 Cent Burgers From Wendy's or I Lost All My Skin, also known as Carnell Nichols Jr. Before and After Burns, is a series of memes, including image macros, using side-by-side images of influencer Carnell Nichols Jr. and what appears to be a Halloween decoration resembling a burned skeleton. The original meme, which reads, "Do not eat them1 cent burgers from Wendy's, I lost all my skin," was posted online in September 2023 and gained viral spread, inspiring further memes using the image along with redraws of the original.

Origin

On September 18th, 2023, Instagram^[1] user carnelln, aka Carnell Nichols Jr., posted an image macro consisting of two side-by-side photos, showing himself on the left and a burned skeleton prop on the right, writing, "Do not eat them 1 cent burgers from Wendy’s 😭 I lost all my skin," garnering over 8,000 likes in eight months (shown below). This is the earliest known version of the meme.

Spread

The meme gained viral spread and inspired referential memes over the following months. On September 22nd, 2023, a version of the meme was posted to /r/5nafcirclejerk^[2] referencing the Five Nights at Freddy's movie, garnering over 180 upvotes in eight months. On November 27th, a similar meme was posted to /r/fivenightsatfreddys,^[3] garnering over 390 upvotes in six months (shown below).

On January 5th, 2024, X^[4] user @zs_pap3r posted an edit of the original meme depicting the two people as Luigi, referencing the "I Hate You Luigi" creepypasta, garnering over 960 likes in four months (shown below, left). On the same day, X^[5] user @interesting_aIl reposted the original meme, garnering over 70,000 likes in the same span of time.

On April 7th, Instagram^[6] user carnelln posted a new meme using the image, writing, "me after not using my glasses to look at the solar eclipse," garnering over 9,300 likes in a month (shown below, right).

On May 20th, X^[7] user @xerorgg posted a video using the image of the burned skeleton to represent someone getting nuked, garnering over 17,000 likes in two days (shown below). On May 21st, Instagram^[8] user carnelln posted a new version of the meme captioned, "How y’all going look after going swimming in the swimmable Baltimore harbor water," garnering over 3,100 likes in a day.

Various Examples

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Search Interest

External References