I'm Sure You Can't Find the 4th Object

Confirmed 114,216

About

I'm Sure You Can't Find the 4th Object refers to a social media game and series of memes where users are shown a scene with four objects hidden throughout, the image captioned, "I'm sure you can't find the 4th object," challenging viewers to find the fourth object. The earliest of these images, posted in 2019, originate from a series of ads for the mobile game Find the Fourth Object. They spread across social media over the following years, with some examples seemingly not having the fourth image hidden anywhere in the image. In 2022 and 2023, versions of the image where a phallic object like a crutch or cucumber is the fourth object, which can't be found in the image, possibly suggesting the objects are hidden inside of a shown person's orifices as a joke.

Origin

The earliest known example of a "find the 4th object" image was posted to iFunny^[1] by KennyFuckingOmega on June 30th, 2019 (shown below, left). On August 4th, Redditor chsugxusjsbx posted a screenshot of a mobile game ad to /r/shittymobilegameads^[2] of a similar image, writing, "classic, adding people cheating to random ads despite it not making sense in any way," garnering over 1,900 upvotes in four years (shown below, right). On August 15th, 2019, another version of the mobile game ad was posted to /r/shittymobilegameads,^[3] showing the same ad as the iFunny poster, garnering over 2,500 upvotes in four years.

The ads are from the mobile game Find the Fourth Object.^[11]

Spread

The image gained viral spread over the following months, also inspiring new variants. It's unclear if they are all from ads for the same mobile game, or if some were made after and simply inspired by them. On October 17th, 2019, Facebook^[4] page 1000 WAYS to LAUGH shared a version of the meme that gained over 6,800 shares in four years. On December 24th, Facebook^[5] page Kraze 101.3 shared a new version of the ads featuring Santa Claus on a toilet.

On March 28th, 2021, Instagram^[6] user fun.officialz posted a version of the meme claiming there is a cup in the image as the fourth object, although there does not appear to be a mug at all, garnering over 1,700 likes in two years (shown below). The image comes from the same series of mobile game ads, as revealed in a 2020 post to /r/assholedesign^[9] asking if the cup is actually hidden in the image.

In 2022, the images started going viral on TikTok, particularly versions of the images with seemingly no fourth object. On March 25th, 2022, TikToker^[7]^[8] @e.ugh posted a version of the image where players must find a crutch, originally posted to Facebook^[10] as early as 2020, that gained over 5.5 million views in a year, posting another on March 27th that gained over 17.4 million views in the same rough span of time (shown below, left and right). Notably, in the first image, a woman is standing at a urinal to pee, possibly suggesting that the "crutch," which has a phallic shape, is hidden out of sight as their penis.

The images continued to go viral on TikTok throughout early 2023 and a TikTok Live trend began that April where users would go live with the image juxtaposed over their head, asking viewers to try and solve it (example shown below). The images are likely used to bait viewers and keep them on the live stream in hopes that they will follow, donate to or like the stream.