I'm Something of a Scientist Myself

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About

"I'm Something of a Scientist Myself" is a memorable quote uttered by the character Norman Osborn (played by Willem Dafoe) in the 2002 superhero film Spider-Man. Online, a screen-capture from the scene has been used in image macros featuring the quote as a punchline to various jokes about one's scientific expertise.

Origin

On May 3rd, 2002, the film Spider-Man was released in theaters in the United States. In the film, the character Norman Osborn meets the protagonist Peter Parker (played by Tobey Maguire) and introduces himself as "something of a scientist" (shown below).

On October 25th, 2016, an anonymous 4chan user posted a screenshot from the scene, which was followed by a parody monologue in which Osborn advises Parker to pee on an anthill (shown below).^[3]

Harry tells me you're quite the science whiz. You know, I'm something of a scientist myself. I like to pee on ants and watch them swim around in it. I sometimes wonder what they think of the mysterious yleeow rain. They panic at first, mandiples flaining, running into each other, trying to escape the warm, bitter stream, but eventually the come to accept it, maybe even enjoy it. Really puts things into perspective. So Pete, if you ever find yourself in doubt, just find an anthill, and pee on it. You'll thank me later.

Spread

One of the earliest uses of the moment as an Image Macro was posted on the /r/raimimemes ^[10] subreddit on June 20th, 2017. That day, Redditor MildlyFrustrating posted the image of Osbourne saying "I'm something of a scientist myself" under the caption "When I successfully connect my computer to wifi." The post (shown below) received more than 1,100 points (100% upvoted).

Over the next year, the green text copypasta was reposted on /tv/ upwards of 30 times.^[4] On August 27th, 2017, an anonymous user submitted the Dafoe screencap along with the message "You know I'm something of a scientist myself" to /tv/, garnering more than 60 replies prior to being archived (shown below).^[5]

On October 9th, 2017, Imgur^[6] user harpoonofurheart uploaded the image along with the caption "When you watch Rick and Morty" (shown below, left). On October 18th 2017, Redditor CronoDroid posted an image macro from the scene titled "When you finish binging all three seasons of Rick and Morty in a few days" to /r/raimimemes.^[9] On February 1st, 2018, Redditor JackColor submitted the Spider-Man screencap along with the caption "When your teacher is talking about Java and you remember Minecraft was made with Java" to /r/dankmemes,^[1] where it gained over 47,000 points (93% upvoted) and 620 comments within 24 hours (shown below, right).

On February 2nd, Redditor poogers555 submitted a Uganda Knuckles-themed variation of the meme to /r/dankmemes,^[7] garnering more than 2,900 points (96% upvoted) and 40 comments in 16 hours (shown below, left). That day, Redditor LiquidConfusion posted the image with the captioned blacked out to spell the expression "no u" to /r/dankmemes^[8] (shown below, right).