He Can't Keep Getting Away With It

About

"He Can't Keep Getting Away With It," alternatively "He Can't Keep Getting Away With This," is a quote from the TV series Breaking Bad said by the character Jesse Pinkman. It is frequently used as a reaction image or GIF when a given person repeatedly does something that's considered bad or immoral. It also is used as a referential comment and reply in threads talking about a specific person who is doing a repeated action. It can be similarly used as a response to someone saying Thanks, Obama! in a sarcastic manner.

Origin

The Breaking Bad scene that the format comes from is season five, episode 12, which aired on September 1st, 2013. In the episode, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) breaks into Walter White's home, pours gasoline all over the floor, and is about to light it on fire when Hank Schrader (Dean Norris) enters and orders him to stop under gunpoint. Jesse explains that Walter previously poisoned his girlfriend's son Brock and that he must be stopped or punished, saying the line. The scene was uploaded to YouTube^[1] three days after the episode aired by the channel Liwi Taz, gaining 550,000 views in seven years (shown below).

The first known meme using the format was posted to Twitter^[2] by user @BreakingBadQT on January 23rd, 2014, which referenced the DUI arrest of Justin Bieber that had occurred earlier that same day, earning 118 retweets and 113 likes in seven years (shown below).

Spread

The meme saw occasional use during the following years, with a large spike occurring during 2019 and 2020. An example using Bernie Sanders was posted on Me.Me^[3] on June 16th, 2019, (shown below).

Another example of the meme, this time using the CIA as part of fedposting, was posted to the subreddit /r/ComedyCemetary^[4] on January 8th, 2020, by Redditor u/nootnoot-till-i-die, earning 42 upvotes in six months (shown below).

Sam Hyde references

This format has also seen use in connotation with Sam Hyde, an alt-right comedian who is frequently falsely alleged to have committed mass shootings. Often when a shooting or other tragedy occurs, it will be falsely referenced and reported online as a tip that Sam Hyde is the cause, which will result in replies saying that "he can't keep getting away with it." An example is seen in a tweet by RT news, reposted to iFunny^[5] on April 8th, 2018 (shown below).

Various Examples

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Search interest

References