If It Pleases the Crown

Submission 35,263

About

If It Pleases the Crown is an image macro series captioned with the phrase "If it pleases the crown," followed by requests to perform actions that are susceptible to government regulation, typically used to mock certain laws as unnecessary restrictions imposed by a monarchy against the populace. The series was popularized in late February 2017 in libertarian-leaning political communities on various social media platforms.

Origin

On February 24th, 2017, Twitter user Kally Omally posted a photograph of a father fishing with his son accompanied by the caption "If it pleases the crown / I would like to purchase a license to make fond memories with my child" (shown below).^[1]

Spread

Shortly after, other Twitter users began posting similar image macros with the hashtag "#ifitpleasesthecrown."^[5] The same day, Instagram user buffalo_tactical^[3] posted a montage of similar image macros tagged "#ifitpleasesthecrown" (shown below).^[3]

On February 25th, Redditor whiskeyforall2 posted a collection of "If It Pleases the Crown" image macros to the /r/Libertarian^[2] subreddit. That day, the Liberty Memes^[7] Facebook page posted a picture of Eric Garner in a choke hold with the caption "If it pleases the crown / may I breathe?" (shown below, left). On February 27th, the Liberty Memes^[4] Facebook page posted a photograph of a dog captioned with a request for police to not shoot the animal when entering their property without a warrant (shown below, right). Within five hours, the post gained over 1,900 reactions and 850 shares.