About

Elmo Nuclear Bomb, not to be confused with Elmo Rise, refers to a photoshopped image of Sesame Street Muppet Elmo appearing to look on in awe at a nuclear explosion. The image has been most commonly used as a reaction image to respond to shocking news or powerful lyrics. The format is also known as Elmo Witnesses Destruction.

Origin

While it's unclear where the picture originated, the earliest known post of the image came on January 30th, 2015 when Twitter user @i_luv_u_JJN posted it.^[1]

Spread

Over the following five years, the image gained more popularity across social media. It was added to "generator" sites such as imgflip^[2] and Meme Generator, where it became a template for several image macros.

The image has also been used as a reaction image paired with captions where people recite lyrics, similar to the Meryl Streep Singing meme. For example, on May 3rd, 2018, Twitter user @huntychan made such a joke, gaining over 44,000 retweets and 131,000 likes (shown below, left). Others used the image as a way to respond to shocking news; for example, on June 21st, 2019, user @c_rahrig posted the image in response to NBA news (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References