Fork Jail

Submission 1,292

About

Fork Jail or Sometimes, When My Husband Makes Me Mad, I Look at Him Through a Fork and Pretend He's In Jail, refers to a series of memes in which a person is shown through the tongs of a fork, often alongside a caption about using the fork to pretend the person is in jail. Memes about putting people in fork jail began appearing online as early as 2017 on sites like Reddit, becoming further popularized over the following years, inspiring a TikTok trend and numerous redraws throughout the 2020s.

Origin

The earliest known example of a fork jail meme was posted to /r/PoliticalHumor^[1] by /u/ShakinBacon64 on November 5th, 2017, The meme is an image macro that reads, "This is why I keep a fork next to me when I watch TV" and shows someone holding the fork over Donald Trump's face to make it appear as if he's in jail (shown below). The post gained over 270 upvotes in six years. The meme was reposted by the Roy Zimmerman Facebook^[2] page on April 29th, 2018, garnering over 4,200 reactions and 1,700 shares in five years.

Spread

On December 11th, 2018, X^[3] user @Chase_Sithole posted, "When my girlfriend makes me angry, I look at her through the fork and pretend she's in jail. It heals me spiritually," garnering over 693,000 likes and 128,000 reposts in five years (shown below).

In April 2021, TikTokers began posting videos where they film their significant other, often their husband or boyfriend, through a fork alongside a variation of the same viral caption posted by @Chase_Sithole. For example, on April 18th, 2021, TikToker^[4] @valbentley72 posted a video following the trend, garnering over 4.2 million views in two years (shown below, left). On August 24th, TikToker^[5] @kellyso2 posted a version of the trend that gained over 300,000 views in the same span of time (shown below, right).

On November 8th, X^[6] user @abbyemonteil posted a screenshot of a video following the trend by TikToker^[6] @theweisslife, garnering over 19,000 likes in two years. On March 24th, 2023, X^[7] user @jeneorarock posted a piece of Trigun fan art referencing the meme, garnering over 9,000 likes in nine months (shown below).

On September 24th, Facebook^[8] user In Otter News posted a fork jail meme, garnering over 67,000 reactions and 15,000 shares in three months (shown below, left). On December 18th, X^[9] user @wildtiktokss posted a screenshot of one of the videos from the TikTok trend, garnering over 232,000 likes in a week. On December 20th, X^[10] user @jokkercruz2 posted a meme following the trend, garnering over 1,200 likes in a week (shown below, right).