Is X in The Room with Us Right Now?

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About

Is X in The Room with Us Right Now? is a phrasal template that uses sarcasm to mimic a phrase that's typically asked by a psychologist or therapist to their patients. Memes pairing the phrase with stock images of mental health professionals have existed since at least 2018 on Twitter and Instagram in which users replace what's "in the room" for humorous effect. In 2021, the snowclone phrase began to be associated with a viral video of the Parkland shooter being interrogated, known as What Pretending To Be Crazy Looks Like, despite the sentence never being spoken in the original interview. The line is often used to mock conspiracy theorists or fear-mongers.

Origin

A plausible origin of the stereotypical phrase referenced in such memes dates back to May 14th, 2000, in the 21st episode of season 11 of The Simpsons that aired on Fox, featuring a scene in which Marge is interrogated by a panel of doctors. After hearing Marge pray under her breath, a doctor asks her, "And this God … is he in this room right now?" The scene can be accessed via a March 8th, 2019, YouTube^[1] upload by smoothreeds, gathering 12,000 views in three years.

In 2018, the phrase "Are the Russians in the room with us right now?" began to appear on Twitter^[2]^[3] and Instagram in image macro memes, with a May 15th, 2018, post by Instagram user @watchchad^[5] gathering over 900 likes (seen below, left), and a July 13th, 2018, post by @thegaywhostrayed^[4] gathering over 3,000 likes, both in roughly four years (seen below, right).

Spread

In May 2021, the aforementioned phrasal template alongside a stock image of a bald man wearing glasses, presumably a therapist or psychologist stock photo, began to circulate on Twitter. The earliest known viral tweet following the format was posted to Twitter by @gabrielsyme08^[6] on May 2nd, 2021, gathering over 16,000 likes in over a year (seen below, left). On May 5th, 2021, Twitter^[7] user @Bolverk15 posted a version of the meme, gathering over 5,000 likes in over a year (seen below, right).

"Are The Demons In The Room With Us Right Now?"

On May 26th, 2021, the viral video What Pretending to Be Crazy Looks Like was uploaded to YouTube, gathering over 30 million views in a week. In June 2021, a screen capture from the video began to be associated with the phrase "are the demons in the room with us right now," despite the sentence never being spoken in the video.

The earliest known use of the image and phrase being used together as a meme was on June 1st, 2021, when Twitter^[10] user @colalover872 posted the screencap alongside a tweet that read, "Is your "boywife" in the room with us right now?" The tweet gathered over 1,000 likes in over a year (seen below, left). On June 3rd, 2021, Twitter^[11] user @notbaldanymore posted another meme, gathering over 4,000 likes in over a year (seen below, right).

On June 7th, the Instagram^[8] page @socialist_nipple_piercing posted a version of the meme taken from a now-deleted Twitter page, gathering over 1,000 likes in over a year (seen below, left). On June 9th, Instagram^[9] user @bandmeme666 posted another version of the meme, gathering over 42,000 likes in over a year (seen below, right).