Don't Worry Baby, He's Just a Nerd!

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About

Don't Worry Baby, He's Just a Nerd! refers to an untitled two-panel webcomic by artist Alexlartwork. In the comic, a nerdy student laments over his object of interest preferring a thuggish student over him, with the roles being reversed in the second panel that takes place years later. Starting in 2017, the comic has been a popular subject of parodies and bone hurting juice -type edits.

Origin

Prior to August 5th, 2011, artist Alexlatwork^[1] posted an untitled two-panel comic in which a nerdy student laments over his object of interest going out with a thuggish student rather than with him. In the second panel of the comic that takes place years later, the nerdy student, now a CEO, snubs his former romantic interest, who then complains about not being able "to find a good man."

On August 5th, 2011, an unknown Redditor^[2] made the earliest available repost of the comic, gaining over 570 upvotes in six months.

Spread

In the following years, the comic had frequently been reposted online multiple times, including in /r/cringepics,^[3] /r/niceguys,^[4] /r/justneckbeardthings^[5] and on Tumblr.^[6]

Prior to October 21st, 2016, an unknown user posted the earliest known parody referencing the comic, recreating it with The Simpsons characters Milhouse Van Houten, Lisa Simpson and Nelson Muntz (shown below). On October 21st, 2016, the image was scraped by Me.me,^[7] with reposts made on Instagram^[8] and Reddit^[9] in the following months.

Through 2017, more parodies of the comic were posted on Facebook, Tumblr and Reddit. For example, prior to February 24th, 2017, Facebook^[10]^[11] group CTFU World posted a Minions version of the comic (shown below, left). On May 3rd, an unknown Redditor^[12] posted a Family Guy version of the meme to /r/DeepFriedMemes, gaining over 270 upvotes in six months. On the same day, Tumblr^[13] user shitpostings-unleashed posted a Grape-kun meme that received over 440 likes and reblogs in three years (shown below, right).

On February 26th, 2018, Redditor^[14] mrfabi posted a bone hurting juice edit of the comic to /r/wholesomememes, with the post accumulating over 600 upvotes in six months (shown below). On February 27th, 2018, the meme was reposted by Tumblr^[15] account positive-memes, gaining over 130,300 notes in two years, and by Redditor^[16] Transwiththeplans, receiving over 17,100 upvotes. The format saw a further surge in popularity following another edit posted by Redditor^[17] KamaFlame on October 3rd, 2018, which received over 17,400 upvotes (shown below, right).

In the following years, the comic maintained significant popularity as a source material both for parodies and recaptions.