How Do We Know If They're Actually Dead Or Just Pretending?

About

How Do We Know If They're Actually Dead Or Just Pretending? refers to an exploitable webcomic published in May of 2019 by artist spaceboycantlol to Facebook and Instagram. The 4-panel comic depicts a scene between what appears to be two Roman soldiers standing over a field of bodies. One soldier says to the other, "How do we know if they're actually dead or just pretending?" to which the other responds, "I'll go to gym regularly from tomorrow." The soldiers in the field laugh in response and the soldiers stab them. The comic became a popular exploitable shortly after publication, with users replacing the text in the second and sometimes third panels.

Origin

On May 27th, 2019, comic artist spaceboycantlol posted the comic (shown below) to his social media pages, including Facebook^[1] and Instagram.^[2] The post, captioned, "Ancient problems require modern solutions too," received over 722 reactions and 460 shares on the former and 5,500 likes on the latter in 18 months. On that same day, Redditor aaka98^[3] re-uploaded the comic to /r/funny, garnering over 3,000 upvotes in the same span of time.

Spread

On May 28th, 2019, iFunny user Calculon^[4] posted an exploited version of the meme replacing the text in the second panel of the comic reading, "I'll go to gym regularly from tomorrow" to "Say HAHAHA or you're gay" (shown below, left). The post received over 40,000 smiles in roughly 18 months. On the same day, iFunny user Agnarak_The_Jailor^[5] uploaded another version of the comic where the text spoken by the supposedly dead soliders has also been replaced (shown below, right). These are two of the earliest exploited versions of the comic.

On May 29th, 2019, imgur user crazy3^[6] uploaded an edited version of the comic, replacing the text in the second panel to, "History is a legitimate college major" (shown below, left). The post received over 92,000 views and 280 comments in 18 months. On the same day, imBagsy^[7] tweeted another variation of the meme with the same text bubble replaced (shown below, right). On May 30th, a now-deleted user uploaded a template^[8] with a blank second-panel speech bubble.

Template

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References