Government Agent Watching Me

Confirmed 105,498

About

Government Agent Watching Me refers to a character referenced in jokes in which a person engages in conversation with a government agent spying on them through either their webcam or smartphone. Rather than sinister, the relationship between the agent and the user is usually sympathetic and emotionally supportive.

Origin

While the jokes became prevalent in late 2017 and early 2018, a popular variation of the joke was posted on April 4th, 2017 by Twitter user @INDIEWASHERE,^[1] gaining over 25,000 retweets and 67,000 likes (shown below).

Spread

The meme began spreading later in 2017. On December 30th, Buzzfeed^[2] compiled several popular tweets about the joke. Popular variations include a tweet from @lilyzella that gained over 76,000 retweets and 224,000 likes (shown below, left). Twitter user @INDIEWASHERE came up with a second popular variation of the joke, gaining over 35,000 retweets and 110,000 likes (shown below, right).

The meme continued to spread, and was covered by Mashable^[3] and Highsnobiety^[4] in early 2018. On January 30th, 2018, Twitter user @fastjellyfish posted a tweet that gained over 2,100 retweets and 4,500 likes (shown below, left). Twitter user @lii_montoya17 uploaded a joke which gained over 17,000 retweets and 39,000 likes (shown below, right).