I Can't Wait for Society to Collapse So My Ideology Can Rise From the Ashes

Submission 8,865

Part of a series on Political Compass. [View Related Entries]

About

I Can't Wait for Society to Collapse So My Ideology Can Rise From the Ashes is a catchphrase used in a series of memes in which followers of different ideologies share the same thought that their ideology will be the one humanity will adopt following societal collapse. Spawned by a Political Compass meme, the exploitable meme format first achieved virality in late 2022.

Origin

On February 28th, 2022, Redditor adam__nicholas posted a Political Compass meme depicting each quadrant as a Brainlet who entertain the same idea that their ideology will triumph once society collapses. The post (shown below) received over 7,700 upvotes in the /r/PoliticalCompassMemes^[1] subreddit in two years.

Spread

On the same day, February 28th, 2022, iFunny^[2] user MostRandomVines reposted the image, with the post gaining over 9,200 smiles on the platform in two years. On March 11th, Tumblr^[3] user beardedmrbean reposted the image, gaining over 430 reblogs and 720 likes in two years.

On October 28th, Tumblr^[4] user capitalism-and-analytics posted a cropped version of the meme that garnered over 960 likes and reblogs in two years. On November 5th, Tumblr^[5] user beardedmrbean posted a Family Guy meme based on that cropped version that gained over 9,800 reblogs and 14,000 likes in two years (shown below).

Following the post, the format achieved popularity on Tumblr and iFunny in late 2022. For example, on November 18th, 2022, Tumblr^[6] user posted a meme about social media platforms that received over 5,100 likes and reblogs in two years (shown below, left). On December 13th, iFunny^[7] user Marina_Armada posted a Fallout: New Vegas edit of the Family Guy version that received over 7,900 smiles in two years (shown below, right).

The format saw more use online in 2023 and 2024, with users placing various characters in the corners of the image. Notably, on March 16th, 2023, entrepreneur Elon Musk posted a Thinkers on a Train version of the meme that gained over 12,000 reposts and 115,000 likes on X^[8] in one year (shown below).