Hello, Human Resources?!

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About

Hello, Human Resources?!, also known as Know the Work Rules, is a comic by Sunny Street lambasting a perceived double standard in women's reactions towards compliments coming from attractive and unattractive males, similar to Be Attractive, Don't Be Unattractive trope. Online, the comic has been parodied, with the phrases said by the characters of the comic altered.

Origin

On September 16th, 2013, "Know the Work Rules" comic by Sunny Street Comics artist Max Garcia was published (shown below).^[1] The comic depicts a conventionally attractive male and an unattractive male complimenting their female coworker on her looks, with her reactions being different. The panels are labeled as "appropriate" and "inappropriate" workplace behavior.

Until January 2019, the comic had been reposted multiple times on Facebook and Reddit and saw limited use in edits, with several notable examples posted on Reddit.^[2]^[3] For example, on November 4th, 2017, Instagram user worstigaccount posted an edit by an unknown author in which the male coworkers ask the woman if she listens to Maroon 5 and Radiohead (shown below, left).^[4] On May 5th, 2018, Redditor Bradley_Haran posted a Star Wars meme about which received over 290 upvotes (shown below, right).^[5] On June 3rd, 2018, the template was submitted to ShitpostBot 5000. ^[6]

Spread

On January 20th, 2019, Redditor FrickDragon posted the unedited comic to /r/justneckbeardthings where it gained over 520 upvotes in six months.^[7] On the same day, Redditor Fifouxxe posted a bone hurting juice edit of the comic to /r/bonehurtingjuice, where it gained over 26,300 upvotes (shown below).^[8]

In the following days, the format gained significant popularity in /r/bonehurtingjuice subreddit (examples shown below).^[9]^[10]^[11]

Starting in August 2019, memes in which the male coworkers asked the female coworker about her musical preferences gained popularity, particularly in /r/hiphopcirclejerk and other music meme communities online.^[12]^[13]

Flirting vs. Harassment

Flirting vs. Harassment is a two-panel meme format lambasting a perceived double standard in women's reactions towards compliments coming from attractive and unattractive males, similar to Hello, Human Resources meme format. Spawned by a viral Facebook meme, the format has been used both as an image caption and an exploitable since March 2021.