I Have Hired X to Stare at You

Submission 7,596

Part of a series on Staring Animals. [View Related Entries]

About

I Have Hired X to Stare at You is a phrasal template spawned by an exploitable GIF caption format that meme creators continuously inserted Staring Animals into, imagined to have been hired to stare at the meme's viewer. The original meme was "I Have Hired This Bird to Stare at You," followed by "I Have Hired This Fox to Stare at You" and then "I Have Hired This Cat to Stare at You," among other iterations involving different animals that recaptioned the first phrase. The meme started in 2021, continuing into 2022 and 2023 across platforms like iFunny, Reddit and Instagram, among others.

Origin

On March 12th, 2021, iFunnier^[1] @0bwgfmudbl4186 posted a GIF caption meme reading, "I have hired this bird to stare at you," showing a crow staring at the meme's viewer (shown below). Over the course of two years, the post gained over 65 smiles. It is currently the first discovered posting of the meme, however, on the same day, since-deleted Twitter^[2] user @poge46061768 also posted the GIF, only gaining two likes before deletion.

Spread

On April 5th, 2021, iFunnier^[3] @Magoth posted a similar GIF caption reading, "I have hired this fox to stare at you," gaining over 30 smiles in two years (shown below, left). It is currently the first discovered posting of the meme. On the next day, April 6th, Instagram^[4] user @grandmas.butt posted the meme, gaining roughly 23,400 likes in two years. A few months later, on August 10th, 2021, Instagram^[5] user @grandmas.butt posted another meme that used the same caption, gaining roughly 42,900 likes in two years (shown below, right).

Going into 2022, the iterations became more complex, evident in an Instagram^[6] video posted by @jank.v1 on February 17th, 2022, that used Kanye's Blank Stare and additionally referenced his Holding Notepad photo and the I'm In Your Walls meme. Over the course of one year, the post gained roughly 28,100 likes (shown below).

Going into late 2022 and early 2023, meme creators began replacing the words in the caption with images rather than text.

For instance, the first known iteration of this nature was posted by Instagram^[7] user @cat.shitpost on October 11th, 2022, showing a baby seal with a cat's face, gaining roughly 7,300 likes in eight months (shown below, left). On May 15th, 2023, Instagram^[8] user @birdworldcentral posted an iteration with a bird staring at a tennis ball, gaining roughly 47,900 likes in 17 days (shown below, right).

Continuing into 2023, the format gained usage across social media platforms.