Foo Fighters vs. the Foo

Submission 48,132

Part of a series on Misinterpretation (Comedy Trope). [View Related Entries]

About

Foo Fighters vs. the Foo refers to a series of jokes and memes which imagine the rock band Foo Fighters protecting the society from a threat known as "foo." Originating from a Dam Edit meme posted in December 2019, the joke gained significant popularity online in mid-February 2020.

Origin

On December 6th, 2019, Facebook^[1] group Dolphinger Center for Memetic Studies posted a Dam Edit meme which imagined the rock band Foo Fighters as a force defending society from Foo. The meme received 540 reactions and 3,500 shares in two months. On December 7th, Redditor^[2] AfricanAmericanNigga reposted the meme to /r/dankmemes, where it received over 33,100 upvotes in the same period.

Precursor

A November 12th, 2006, the Robot Chicken episode "Anne Marie's Pride" features a sketch in which Foo Fighters join Mr. T in fighting "foos" (as in "fools").^[14]

Spread

On December 6th, 2019, several Facebook users posted more memes based on the joke in the comment section of the original post, including memes posted by Cole McCorkendale^[3] and Deric Boyer^[4] (shown top and bottom left). After the December 7th Reddit repost of the meme, several low-upvoted posts based on the joke also appeared on Reddit^[5]^[6] in the following days. A similar meme about Street Fighter posted by Redditor^[7] tehflyingeagle on December 11th similar received over 8,300 upvotes in /r/okbuddyretard (shown below, bottom right).

The format did not see notable spread until on January 29th, 2019, Redditor^[8] ITaHiR_Requiem posted a JoJo's Bizarre Adventure meme based on the joke to /r/okbuddyretard subreddit, where it received over 2,600 upvotes in three weeks (shown below, top). The popularity of the format was prompted further when on February 10th, 2020, Twitter^[9] user @TF2Cursed posted a Team Fortress 2 version of the meme which received over 2,300 retweets and 7,600 likes in ten days (shown below, bottom).

Starting in mid-February 2020, the joke gained a notable presense on Reddit and Twitter. For example, a February 17th, 2020, post by Redditor^[10] boab_129 received over 32,200 upvotes in three days.

Meaning of the Word "Foo"

The band Foo Fighters takes their name from "foo fighters," a collective name for UFOs and other aerieal phenomena reported by the Allied aircraft pilots during World War II.^[11] The nonsense word "foo" emerged in popular culture during the early 1930s, first used by cartoonist Bill Holman in his Smokey Stover strip.^[12]^[13] The term was allegedly borrowed by a radar operator Donald J. Meiers during the war, who dubbed the unidentified aerial objects "foo fighters." For the lack of a better name, the phrase stuck.