Emerson Shake vs. Emerson Jake / Ultimate Sheik Battle Royale

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About

Emerson Shake vs. Emerson Jake, also known as Ultimate Sheik Battle Royale, refers to a meme competition organized on Twitter to decide the best nickname for the Brazilian football player Emerson Sheik, who was being compared to objects and characters like Jake from Adventure Time. The trend used an image macro picture of the player's face to create several variations of his last name.

Origin

On January 7th, 2023, the Twitter account @Snaihtniroccccc^[1] shared the print of a conversation mocking the Brazilian football player Emerson Sheik,^[2] with a photoshop picture of his face on The Rock's body. The joke is that his last name "Sheik" is replaced by "Shape." The tweet received 7,200 likes and 358 retweets in five days (seen below).

A day after the image went viral, another photoshopped version of the football player was sent to @Snaihtniroccccc by an unknown user, putting his face on a skateboard^[3] and calling him "Emerson Skate." The tweet received 15,900 likes and 886 retweets in four days and inspired more meme variations on Twitter.

Spread

As the meme became a trending topic on Brazilian Twitter, the user @Snaihtniroccccc announced the "Ultimate Sheik Battle Royale,"^[4] a championship of the most popular meme names found to decide the definitive best name for the Brazilian footballer. The winner would be chosen by the votes of people on Twitter. The announcement post, uploaded on January 9th, 2023, garnered 13,000 likes and 1,200 retweets in three days.

The final round of the "Ultimate Sheik Battle Royale" divided opinions on Twitter, as "Emerson Jake" (from Adventure Time) and "Emerson Shake" were both fan-favorite meme names. To celebrate the championship's popularity, @Snaihtniroccccc posted a video^[5] with the UEFA Champions League intro with both "names" as rivals in battle. Uploaded on January 10th, the video, seen below, received 288,500 views and 19,600 likes in one day.

On January 10th, 2023, the final voting poll elected "Emerson Shake" as the "Ultimate Name" for the footballer Emerson Sheik. The tweet announcing the victory reached 1 million views and 90,800 likes in one day (seen below).

Brands Join Ultimate Sheik Battle Royale

Hoping to benefit from the battle's popularity, companies like McDonalds and Duolingo all shared their takes on the trend. The first company posted an Ovomaltine shake picture^[6] in defense of "Emerson Shake's" victory as Duolingo^[7] sided with the same name.