It Couldn't Be Going Worse, Keith

About

It Couldn't Be Going Worse, Keith, or I Hate the Water Temple, Too Confusing, is a series of memes based on a screenshot of a YouTube comment thread in which one user, TheMrdangles16, writes, "I hate math… too confusing," followed by user Keith Halsell responding nine years later, "I hope you are doing great in life now," and MrDangles16 answering, "It couldn't be going worse, Keith." The meme was originally posted to Reddit in September 2020 and became the subject of memes over the following years as an exploitable, with one of the most notable variants altering the first comment to read, "I hate the water temple… too confusing."

Origin

On September 16th, 2020, Redditor u/Seanix19 posted a screenshot of a comment thread under an unknown YouTube video to /r/youtubecomments,^[1] titled, "Probably the rarest comment I've seen on YouTube," garnering around 170 upvotes in four years (shown below). The first comment, left by TheMrdangles16, reads, "I hate math… too confusing." Keith Halsell replies, "It's been 9 years, I hope you are doing great in life now." TheMrdangles16 responds, "It couldn't be going worse, Keith."

Spread

The meme gained viral spread over the following years, inspiring edits. On April 13th, 2022, it was included in a Buzzfeed^[2] collection of "21 Hilarious YouTube Comments That Are Better Than The Actual Video." On August 23rd, 2023, it was reposted to iFunny,^[3] garnering over 13,000 smiles in a year.

On April 24th, 2024, Facebook^[4] page eStarland posted an edit of the meme where "math" is replaced with "water temple," a reference to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time's infamously confusing water temple dungeon, garnering over 280 reactions and 340 shares in two months (shown below).

On May 1st, the water temple variant was reposted by Instagram^[5] user demotedmemes, garnering over 40,000 likes in a month. On May 14th, u/AnInnocentMan1983 posted a meme to /r/OkBuddyPersona^[6] assigning each comment to a different Persona character, garnering over 2,600 upvotes in a month (shown below, left). On May 19th, X^[7] user@chudyaoi posted a similar meme with Yakuza characters, garnering over 3,000 likes in the same span of time (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References