He Was a Good Man / Until He Wasn't

About

"He Was a Good Man / Until He Wasn't", sometimes prefixed by the phrase "Murder Documentaries Be Like", is a two-panel exploitable template in which two pictures compare a character before and after turning villainous, i.e. a duality of "good vs evil." It commonly comes in two types: either two different pictures of the same person in different situations or the exact same picture in inverted colors.

Origin

The first known version of the meme was posted on the subreddit r/SpidermanPS4^[1] on January 6th, 2021, earning 7,700 points (shown below).^[1] A much more popular post (below, right) appeared a month later, on the subreddit r/memes on February 7th, earning 92,300 points.^[2]

Spread

The template did not begin growing popular until it surged in popularity in May. For example, on May 10th, Redditor PotatoBunny9519 posted an example in /r/memes^[3] that gained over 48,000 points (shown below, left). On May 12th, Redditor yeetmy6meat9 posted an example in /r/dankmemes^[4] that gained over 12,000 points (shown below, center). The same day, user bojida_ivanov posted an example in /r/dankmemes^[5] that gained over 16,000 points (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search interest

References