About

Don't👏Claim👏 To👏 Be👏 a👏 Fan 👏If👏You👏Don't👏Know👏Who👏This👏Is is a phrasal template or snowclone, captioning an image of a fictional character performing the activity, expressing that one cannot be true fan of said field without knowledge of the image subject.

Origin

On August 8th, 2016, Twitter user @antoniodelotero^[1] posted the earliest known iteration of the meme (shown below): an image of SpongeBob SquarePants doing an olympic dive with the caption, "don't 👏 claim 👏 to 👏 be 👏 a 👏 fan 👏 of 👏 the 👏 olympics 👏 if 👏 you 👏 don't 👏 know 👏 who 👏 this 👏 is." As of May 2017, the tweet has received more than 17,200 retweets and 23,100 likes.

Spread

The following day, on August 9th, Twitter user @kysbaker^[5] posted a variation of the meme with different color emojis, receiving more than 320 retweets and 430 likes (shown below). On August 20th, Twitter user @memeprovider reposted the image and received 4,700 retweets and 8,500 likes.^[4]

On October 22nd, 2016, Twitter user @garyfromteenmom^[2] posted an image of a dog wearing sunglasses with the center of a paper towel roll on its mouth with the caption, "don't👏claim👏you👏like👏jazz👏if👏you👏dont👏know👏who👏this👏is👏." The post received more than 14,000 retweets and 30,000 likes in seven months. Redditor roshane69^[3] posted a screencap of the tweet on the /r/me_irl subreddit on October 29th, during its Meme Renaissance period. The post received more than 3,600 points (98% upvoted) before archived.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References