Every Ross I've Ever Met Thinks He's a Chandler

Submission 643

Part of a series on Friends. [View Related Entries]

About

Every Ross I've Ever Met Thinks He's a Chandler is a viral Tumblr post referencing the TV show Friends to suggest that people who think they're generally well-liked, like the character Chandler, are actually often disliked, like the character Ross. The post was made in 2016 and was added to over the following years with "translations" applying characters from other fandoms to the phrase. In February 2024, the post inspired a trend on Reddit where fandom subreddits gave their interpretations of the phrase.

Origin

On October 10th, 2016, Tumblr^[1] user senatorgana posted, "every Ross i’ve ever met thinks he’s a Chandler," garnering over 157,000 notes in eight years. The post references a widely held dislike for the Friends character Ross and love for the character Chandler.

The post was added to several times over the following years. For example, on an unknown date, now-deleted Tumblr user moogsandmoods posted, "Someone translate this." On November 3rd, 2019, Tumblr^[2] user tellthevoid, formerly JRPG, added, "every yamcha i’ve ever met thinks he’s a goku" (shown below).

Spread

The meme gained viral spread over the following years and was included on a list of "Tumblr Gems" by Cheezburger^[3] in 2021. On February 25th, 2024, u/Keeperoftheclothes posted the meme to /r/greysanatomy,^[4] writing, "Grey’s edition," garnering over 1,400 upvotes in two days. The post inspired commenters to come up with Grey's Anatomy renditions of the saying (top rated examples shown below).^[5]^[6]

The post inspired a trend on Reddit where users posted it to other fandom-related subreddits, asking for translations referring to the given fandom. On February 25th it was posted to /r/PrettyLittleLiars,^[7] followed by a post to /r/GilmoreGirls^[8]^[9] and /r/shameless^[10] on February 26th, garnering over 1,200 upvotes on the former and 400 on the latter in a day, On February 27th, it was posted to /r/brooklynninenine,^[11]^[12] garnering over 560 upvotes in under a day (top examples from /r/GilmoreGirls and /r/BrooklynNineNine shown below, left and right).