How to Frighten the New Generation

About

How to Frighten the New Generation is a catchphrase used in a series of recaption memes based on an image macro of The Muppets character Statler captioned with suggestions on how to scare the younger generation. Spawned by a viral edit of a Facebook meme in 2020, the format has since been used to reference video games and other media.

Origin

On October 19th, 2019, the Facebook^[1] page More Crazy Stuff posted an image macro starting with the question, "How do you frighten this new generation?" and suggested putting them in a room with a rotary phone, an analog watch, a TV with no remote and instructions written in cursive. The post (shown below) garnered over 22,000 reactions and 381,000 shares in four years.

Following a period of viral spread of the macro and its copycat versions, on September 25th, 2020, the Facebook^[2] page Funny Thoughts and Jokes posted an image macro of The Muppets character Statler captioned with a similar suggestion. The post (shown below) garnered over 2,100 reactions and 4,400 shares in three years.

Spread

On June 1st, 2022, Redditor FiddlerOfTheForest posted a recaptioned version of the meme in the /r/ComedyNecrophilia^[3] subreddit that gained over 6,200 upvotes in one year (shown below).

On June 23rd, 2022, Redditor doledickard posted a cropped version of the meme that garnered over 1,800 upvotes in /r/okbuddyretard^[4] one year (shown below, left). On July 28th, 2022, an unknown Redditor then posted a Five Nights at Freddy's version of the meme that received over 3,800 upvotes on the /r/okbuddyretard^[5] subreddit prior to deletion (shown below, right).

The macro maintained its prevalence as a recaption format through 2022 and early 2023. For example, an Iron Lung version of the meme posted by Twitter^[6] user @neoncaelestis on August 4th, 2022, saw particular virality.

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References