I Hope You Step on a LEGO

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About

"I hope you step on a LEGO" is a phrase often used as a retort in rage comics and reaction images to express one's resentment towards someone who has done something unpleasant as to deserve punishment or ill-fortune, such as accidentally stepping on a LEGO brick.

Origin

The humorous association of stepping on a small lego brick in barefoot with severe pain began as early as in 2007 with various parenting blog posts and discussions, as mentioned in I am Mama^[4], Frugal Village^[17], Huffington Post^[1] and Yahoo Voice articles.^[18] It has been also reported as a commonly shared experience among parents with children or in childhood memories, according to various Yahoo Answer threads.^[6] The earliest known iteration of the phrase in rage comics can be found in a FFFFFUUUUUUUU rage comic posted via 4chan sometime in late 2009.

Spread

Its colloquial usage in the comments section of blog articles, videos and image posts became noticeable in 2011, after a screenshot of the phrase was posted by Tumblr blogger suriikufu^[2] on February 6th, 2011, receiving more than 60,000 notes. That same day, a Facebook^[3] fan page titled "I Hope You Step on a LEGO Brick, Barefoot" was launched, which has accumulated over 44,000 likes as of July 2012.

Throughout the latter half of 2011, a colorful variety of image macros, reaction images and tribute artworks featuring the phrase surfaced on Tumblr^[5] under the tag "I hope you step on a lego."

In Rage Comics

The phrase also became closely associated with various rage comics as a reaction image conveying bitter resentment towards another character(s) portrayed in the same comic, examples of which can be found on a wide range of websites and image-sharing communities, from rage comic specialty blogs like Best Rage Comics^[13], RageGenerator^[14] and RageStache^[15] to general internet humor sites Memebase^[10], FunnyJunk^[11] and 9gag.^[12]