In Possession of an Ancient Staff

About

In Possession of an Ancient Staff, also known as Young Thug Ancient Staff or Ryan Gosling Ancient Staff, refers to a series of misinformation memes and image macros claiming that various celebrities are in possession of an ancient staff that holds unknown power. A meme claiming that Young Thug was in possession of an ancient staff, using an image of a Wabbajack prop staff from Skyrim alongside the catchphrase, was first posted to Instagram in July 2022, inspiring variations over the following months.

Origin

On July 12th, 2022, Instagram^[1] user thepapajohn posted an image macro showing side-by-side photos of a Wabbajack (the Daedric artifact of Sheogorath in The Elder Scrolls) prop staff built by DeviantArt^[2] user JarmanProps in September 2012 and Young Thug, captioned, "Court documents reveal Young Thug was in possession of an ancient staff which holds unknown power" (shown below). The meme was reposted to /r/YoungThug^[3] that day, garnering over 1,600 upvotes in the same span of time.

Spread

The Young Thug meme received viral spread over the following months, including a July 17th, 2022, post by Instagram^[4] user mememonk_ that gained over 25,000 likes in eight months. On February 13th, 2023, Instagram^[5] user rapt (a RapTV parody account) posted a version of the meme about Kodak Black, garnering over 18,100 likes in a month (shown below).

On February 21st, 2023, Twitter^[6] user @JunoOfDC posted a version of the meme about actor Ryan Gosling possessing the staff, garnering over 147,000 likes in two weeks (shown below). The meme was then reposted to iFunny^[7] on February 23rd, garnering over 5,000 smiles in a similar timeframe.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References