Doktor, Turn Off My Pain Inhibitors

Submission 29,257

Part of a series on Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. [View Related Entries]

About

"Doktor, Turn Off My Pain Inhibitors" is a line said by the character Raiden in the 2013 video game Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Following the release, the line saw use as the Doktor, Turn Off My X Inhibitors phrasal template, gaining widespread recognition in the late 2010s alongside other memes from the game.

Origin

On February 19th, 2013, the action-adventure video game Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance was released.^[1] During the fight with the boss enemy Monsoon, protagonist Raiden returns to his violent Jack the Ripper persona and contacts the character Wilhelm "Doktor" Voight, requesting his pain inhibitors to be turned off, a demand that Voight reluctantly fulfills.

- Doktor, turn off my pain inhibitors!
- What? This is madness! You-
- Do it!
- All right…

On December 24th, 2013, Funnyjunk^[2] user ImNotFunnyAtAll posted the earliest known meme based on the scene, a tfw no gf meme that received nearly 200 thumbs up (authorship unconfirmed, shown below). On February 24th, 2014, Know Your Meme^[3] user MScratch archived the image.

Spread

In the following years, the line was popularized as the Doktor, Turn Off My X Inhibitors snowclone, with users editing or adding imagery depending on the joke. For example, on June 3rd, 2015, Tumblr^[4] user soulkarl posted a screenshot of their Miiverse post that gained over 6,800 likes and reblogs in six years (shown below, left). On March 7th, 2015, Redditor^[5] bluesoulthe1st posted a meme that gained over 210 upvotes in the /r/metalgearsolid subreddit in six months (shown below, right).

On September 16th, 2018, iFunny^[6] user JonTronStar posted a Sans / Megalovania meme that received over 5,000 smiles on the app in three years (shown below, left).

Prior to September 15th, 2019, Twitter user @Joshtruct1ion posted a still image of Raiden, writing, "DOKTOR TURN OFF MY CRINGE INHIBITORS" (tweet no longer available, screenshot shown below, center). The tweet received viral popularity through reposts,^[7]^[8] reigniting the popularity of the line. For example, on November 24th, 2019, iFunny^[9] user Xundus posted a GIF Caption based on the meme that received over 1,400 smiles in two years. On November 30th, 2019, iFunny^[10] user JonTronStar posted a dubbed version of the GIF caption, with the meme gaining over 3,200 smiles in the same period (shown below, right).

In 2020, the format maintained a notable presence on iFunny, with several viral contributions from JonTronStar^[11] and other users.^[12] In 2021, the format saw further spread both as a snowclone and in dubbed edits.