Doctor: "Does It Hurt If I Do This?"

About

Doctor: "Does It Hurt If I Do This?" or Doctor: "Does It Hurt When I Do This?" are catchphrases used in a series of video and GIF caption memes based on footage of violent fights, usually from Mortal Kombat and other fighting video games, which make fun of the medical procedure in which a doctor applies pressure or movement to a part of patient's body to check for pain. Spawned by a Reddit post, the format maintained a presence online in 2022 and 2023.

Origin

On September 8th, 2022, Redditor diplotaurus posted a video of a fight between video game characters Raiden and Scorpion from a trailer for the 2019 video game Mortal Kombat 11 captioned, "Doctor: "does it hurt if I do this?" The post (shown below) garnered over 450 upvotes in the /r/197^[1] subreddit in 10 months.

Spread

The video saw viral spread through reposts on Twitter, TikTok and iFunny in 2022 and 2023. For example, on June 27th, 2023, Twitter^[2] account @256GBMemes reposted the video, with the upload gaining over 7,500 retweets and 67,600 likes in one month.

Starting in September 2022, the caption was used in more memes, usually combined with footage of one character beating another up from various video games. For example, on September 25th, 2022, Redditor trashviolet posted a meme that received over 270 upvotes on the /r/MobileLegendsGame^[3] subreddit (shown below).

The format saw a surge in virality on TikTok after a repost of the original meme went viral on Twitter^[2] and the app.^[4]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References