Guy Throwing Up / Me Remembering

Submission 6,717

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

About

Guy Throwing Up or Me Remembering is an exploitable meme template of a black-and-white pixelated man bending over and throwing up. Captions associated with the image macro predominantly involve remembering something cringe in one's past that'd make them barf or vomit. The template also follows a phrasal template of "Me Remembering X," which is recaptioned by creators. The trend started en masse on Twitter and Tumblr in 2019.

Origin

The image macro of the man throwing up was originally posted to Photobucket ^[1] (shown below) in 2008 as a GIF as an illustration of haematemesis (vomiting blood).

At one point in the GIF's timeline online, it morphed into the more well-known black-and-white still image that meme creators captioned in the 2020s. The exact timeline of this transformation is currently unknown.

On April 2nd, 2018, Tumblr^[13] blog tachylyte made a post about "I exist outside of my own perceptions of myself and that people probably talk about me sometimes," earning roughly 186,800 notes in four years.

Possibly inspired by this, on May 2nd, 2018, Twitter^[14] user apricotbelly tweeted, "wait .., i Exist outside of my own perception of myself and people probablytalk about me sometimes …..," accompanied with the photo of the man throwing up. In four years, their tweet received over 670 likes (shown below, left). Around the same time, The Instagram^[15] page bonedetergent (private) posted a re-worded version of apricotbelly's tweet,^[14] instead reading, "I exist outside my own perception of myself and People probably talk about me sometimes" (shown below, right). According to a Pinterest^[16] repost of bonedetergent's post, it received over 16,800 likes.

It is currently unknown who reworded the meme because a secondary tweet from apricotbelly with the new wording is not available online. It was most likely Instagram page bonedetergent that reworded it and posted it themself.

Spread

On July 20th, 2019, the Tumblr^[2] blog dagatesofheaven posted essentially the same meme as Instagram's bonedetergent, earning roughly 57,400 notes in three years (shown below). Dagatesofheaven wrote in their post's description that they first saw the meme on Instagram. This would allude to bonedetergent's Instagram^[15] post as the source, however, bonedetergent's image was black while dagatesofheaven's was white.

On August 9th, 2019, Twitter^[3] user drowzygf (since-suspended) posted a tweet (since-deleted) that was similar to the meme shared by Tumblr's dagatesofheaven. It used the same image of the man throwing up and had a caption reading, "just remembered I exist outside my own perception and people can see me and form an opinion about me." Although the tweet is no longer accessible, it was screenshotted and reposted to Reddit's /r/me_irl ^[4] on August 15th, 2019, by Redditor Throwaway273528, earning over 100 upvotes in three years (shown below).

Drowzygf's tweet was reposted to many platforms going into the remainder of 2019. For instance, on October 22nd, 2019, iFunnyer ^[5] DiIdo__2014 reposted the tweet, receiving roughly 28,700 smiles in three years. On May 30th, 2020, drowzygf's tweet was reposted by Tumblr^[6] blog anxietyproblem, earning roughly 6,100 likes in two years.

On August 10th, 2020, Twitter^[7] user jil_slander posted a tweet that used the same image as the original and again joked about being perceived. Over the course of two years, the tweet received roughly 1,600 likes (shown below, left). Additionally, the tweet was reposted to /r/me_irl^[8] on August 11th.

On October 15th, 2020, Instagam^[9] page existentialmemes re-edited the meme, crossing out most of the words to read, "just remembered I exist." The meme received over 990 likes in two years (shown below, right).

On June 21st, 2021, Tumblr^[9] blog sleepyvoidboi posted an exploited version that read, "Me when I remember I'm me:" Over the course of one year, the post received roughly 21,000 notes (shown below, left). On May 30th, 2022, Instagram^[10] user sad_old_goth posted a version that read, "me remembering how I was nice when I should have said who the fuck do u think you're talking to." It is currently unknown who this version's original creator is, but sad_old_goth's post is the first known online (shown below, right).

On June 15th, 2022, controversial The Flash actor Ezra Miller shared the aforementioned iteration on their Instagram Story amid multiple allegations and controversies (shown below, left). They later deleted their Instagram account and many believed the sharing of the meme to be a cryptic message.

On July 15th, 2022, Twitter^[11] user himtuition reposted the meme, receiving roughly 237,000 likes in five days. This repost inspired many meme creators across platforms to remix the template going into 2022. For instance, on July 18th, 2022, Twitter^[12] user peachhpunchh tweeted a version that joked about being 11 years old on Tumblr and "playing mermaids" with their friends, earning roughly 23,300 likes in two days (shown below, right).