About

Get a Load of This Guy is an idiomatic expression and catchphrase that can either be used to acknowledge a witty remark made by another person or poke fun at the complacency of such a remark. In online discussion forums and comments, the phrase is most often iterated in the form of reaction images or GIFs in which various characters are making a pointing gesture.

The meme saw a resurgence on TikTok starting sometime in mid-2025, with the phase once again being accompanied by images of various celebrities or characters making a similar pointing gesture in the platform's comment sections to mock or joke about various posts.

Origin

On May 3rd, 2007, an entry^[5] for the phrase was submitted to Urban Dictionary, defining it as:

[a] phrase to describe someone who thinks he/she has a lot of clams, and is therefore exceptionally witty, jaunty, and/or extravagant

One of the earliest and most widely used base photographs for the reaction image series originates from a scene in the 1992 American comedy film Wayne's World,^[4] wherein the titular character Wayne Campbell looks directly at the camera while gesturing his thumb towards his friend Garth Algar in a fit of laughter and the subtitle reads, "Get-A-Load of This Guy Cam."

Spread

Since as early as 2010, the screen capture of the Wayne's World scene has been used as a reaction image on various imageboards, with the earliest known archived instance dating back to a 4chan thread^[1] posted on August 17th, 2010.

In the following years, a number of other derivatives entered widespread usage on 4chan. On January 12th, 2011, an image macro of Patrick Bateman, better known as the Dubs Guy) from the 2000 American black comedy film American Psycho, was posted in a discussion thread^[4] on /a/ (anime) board.

On March 31st, 2011, another iteration based on an image of the character Ross Geller (played by actor David Schwimmer), one of the main characters from the '90s American TV sitcom Friends, was posted in a thread^[3] on /a/ (anime) board.

In addition, the expression has also been used as the title of dozens of posts on Reddit^[8] and "#getaloadofthisguy" remains an active hashtag on Tumblr.^[6]

TikTok Resurgence

The Get A Load Of This Guy meme has seen a resurgence throughout 2025 and 2026, entering common use in comment sections on TikTok as picture and sticker comments became available on the platform.

While the catchphrase has remained intact, the images accompanying the text (or hashtag) have largely changed over time to include a wide array of people.

Various examples of images used in the newer incarnations of the meme, including stock images, previous memes and reaction images sourced from cartoons and movies like Alvin and the Chipmunks and Tom and Jerry, can be found in a video posted by TikTok^[7] user @ubejello on May 9th, 2025. The video received 1.6 million views and 32,200 likes in less than one year.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References