I Wish I Was At Home / They Don’t Know

About

I Wish I Was At Home Playing Video Games is an exploitable comic series in which the subject is depicted as anxious and uncomfortable at parties and other social situations. Many variations of the image feature the Wojak character Feels Guy. In November 2020, a variation of the meme notably spread online. The updated version of the meme features the same image with the text altered to read the phrasal template They Don't Know I'm X. The variant alludes to one's feelings of self-worth and inadequacy when around strangers.

Origin

The earliest known usage of the phrase in an image macro dates back to December 16th, 2009, when an image of That Feel Guy at the party was uploaded to the Internet humor site Sad and Useless^[1] (shown below).

Spread

On October 22nd, 2011, YouTuber Jedi Mocro uploaded a video titled "I wish I was at home playing videogames," featuring an uncomfortable man standing in a loud club (mirror below).

On July 19th, 2014, FunnyJunk user joaomartins posted a Tumblr-themed version of the comic (shown below, left). On August 15th, a compilation of notable examples was posted by ^[2] user forakens. On August 23rd, a Habbo Hotel-themed version of the image was posted by Tumblr user habbomemez (shown below, right).

They Don't Know I'm

On November 28th, 2020, Twitter^[3] user @urmomlolroasted posted the earliest known variation of the "They Don't Know I'm" meme. The image is the same one featured in the I Wish I Was At Home meme with the text changed to read, "They don't know I am mildly popular on the left Twitter." The tweet received more than 205,000 lakes and 10,000 retweets in less than one week (shown below).

Over the next few days, variations of the meme continued to appear on Twitter, Reddit and Instagram. In each instance, the meme expresses feelings of inadequacy towards an achievement that might seem impressive online the bears little relevance in social situations.

For example, on November 30th the Instagram^[4] account @sunny5ideup published a variation that reads they don't know I mean mildly popular Instagram account. The post received more than 55,000 likes in less than 24 hours (shown below, left). That day, Twitter^[5] user @simplyn64 posted a variation that reads, "They don't know I am good at speedrunning mario 64." The tweet received more than 41,000 likes and 1,700 retweets in less than one week (shown below, center).

On December 1st, Redditor aaycube posted a variation in the /r/gtaonline^[6] that reads, "They don't know I have a 2.0 in KD in GTA online." The post received more than 11,000 points (98% upvoted) and 325 comments in less than 24 hours (shown below, right).

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References