I Am The Lorax I Speak For The Trees

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About

I Am The Lorax I Speak For The Trees refers to an exploitable two-panel comic in which a crudely-drawn version the Dr. Seuss character The Lorax says his catchphrase, "I am the Lorax and I speak for the trees," in the first panel, and says "The trees say shut the fuck up" in the second. What the character says in the second panel is changed in the exploitable edits.

Origin

The crudely-drawn character was first posted to Tumblr on June 24th, 2014 by Targent.^[1] It has gained over 70,000 notes over 3 years (shown below).

On October 9th, 2015, the first version of the "shut the fuck up" edit was posted on Imgur by InstntNoodle^[2] with a photoshopped Who Needs Feminism? sign that gained over 6,100 points (shown below).

Spread

On October 15th, Tumblr user obamyself^[3] posted the Lorax comic by itself. On November 7th, user ey-b0ss420^[4] posted an edit where the Lorax says a variation on Smash the Like, gaining over 160,000 notes (shown below).

In the following years, several more iterations of the template appeared on various internet sites. For example, on January 16th, 2016, Facebook page Nihilist Memes^[6] posted a version where the Lorax monologues on death. The post gained over 3,100 likes and reactions (shown below, left). On October 3rd, 2016, Facebook meme page God Save Our Gracious Meme^[5] posted a version where the Lorax asks "Are Italians White," gaining over 2,300 likes and reactions (shown below, right).

/r/dankmemes Surge

In September of 2017, a surge of edits appeared on meme-centric subreddit /r/dankmemes. On September 20th, Redditor mujheandaywalaburger^[7] posted a meta-edit where the Lorax actually gave environmental advice that gained over 2,500 points (shown below, left). Another popular post which stated "Twitter posts ain't memes" gained over 2,600 points (shown below, right).