About

Een is a nickname for the Marvel superhero Wanda Maximoff, aka Scarlet Witch, as portrayed by Elizabeth Olsen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It is an intentional misspelling of "queen."

Origin

On August 15th, 2018, Facebook ^[1] user halloumi.cheesee posted a four-panel meme in the Marvel Shieldposting group. The top half, the meme features a picture of fried calamari and the caption quid next to a picture of English currency and the caption "quid." The bottom half of the meme features an image of two checkmarks and the caption "seen" and a picture of actor Elizabeth Olsen with no caption. While the meme's author intended to equate Wanda with "queen," many in the comments read the pattern as dropping the first letter from the caption in the adjacent panel. The post received more than 1,600 reactions and 720 comments in less than three years.

Spread

The term quickly became an in-joke within the Shieldposting group. That day, halloumi.cheesee posted the earliest known intentional "een" meme.^[2] The post received more than 1,000 reactions and 150 comments (shown below, left).

Over the next year, the meme continued to grow within the group, along with other misspellings of other characters. For example, on March 26th, 2019, group member jessica.perkovic^[3] posted an "een" meme that featured "Sbeve," a misspelling of Steve Rogers, aka Captain America. The post received more than 2,800 reactions and 135 comments in less than two years (shown below, center).

On September 21st, 2020, group member john.renehan1^[4] shared a variation of the I Don't Even Know Who You Are meme, using Thanos Car and Een. The post received more than 2,500 reactions and 100 comments in less than one week (shown below, right).

In a 2020 interview with Know Your Meme, Shieldposting moderator Kirstie said, "Anyone can be called an 'een,' but Wanda is THE een. Sbeve, thanks/thanos, and shisldposting are other common misspellings, but 'een' has been the most popular.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Not available.

External References