It Insists Upon Itself

About

It Insists Upon Itself refers to a catchphrase from the Peter Griffin Drowning Confession meme and scene in which the Family Guy character Peter Griffin claims the movie The Godfather "insists upon itself." The scene originally aired in May 2006 but gained online traction as an exploitable image macro meme on sites like Reddit in the 2010s and as a copypasta comment on TikTok and X / Twitter in the 2020s, typically being used to share criticism about a piece of media, content creator or unpopular opinions about a trending topic. In mid-January 2025, the show's creator, Seth MacFarlane, explained in a tweet that the phrase, "It insists upon itself," was a criticism a college film history professor gave to explain why he didn’t think The Sound of Music was a great film.

Origin

The quote, "It insists upon itself," was said by the character Peter Griffin on May 14th, 2006, in episode 27 titled "Untitled Griffin Family History" of season four of the animated comedy series Family Guy. In the scene, Peter confesses that he didn't like the universally acclaimed movie The Godfather, elaborating that he thinks that "it insists upon itself" (scene shown below).^[1]

But since we're all gonna die, there's one more secret I feel I have to share with you. I did not care for The Godfather. […] It insists upon itself, Lois.

The phrase has been used in online forums like 4chan since early 2010, with one of the oldest mentions of it being posted by an unknown 4chan^[5] user on February 26th, 2010, in a conversation about The Godfather trilogy (seen below).

The earliest known memetic mention of the phrase, however, was posted on March 1st, 2018, by Imgflip^[2] user @Jerksauceagain, who added a still image of Peter and Lois arguing, writing "Liberalism, it insists upon itself." The post (seen below) gained more than 3,100 views in seven years.

Spread

The phrase “It insists upon itself” gained traction online over the following years, particularly in image macro memes editing the text over the original scene using the quote as a phrasal template like, "I did not care for X, it insists upon itself."

For example, on December 30th, 2020, Redditor Gaymemelord69 shared a version to the subreddit /r/FalloutHumor^[6] referencing the video game Fallout New Vegas using the format, receiving over 240 upvotes and 15 comments in four years.

On February 5th, 2023, Redditor _Pseudobread posted another example to the /r/okbuddyretard^[7] subreddit, garnering over 1,800 upvotes and 20 comments in two years (shown below).

The format continued to spread into the 2020s, resurfacing in mid-January 2025, particularly on platforms like X and TikTok.

For instance, on January 19th, 2025, X^[3] user @thedigitaldash_ tweeted, "Peter Griffin saying ‘it insists upon itself’ is one of the most succinct and universally applicable critiques you can leverage when discussing art + media and I’m being so serious." This post quickly went viral, collecting over 7 million views and 127,000 likes in four days (shown below).

Seth MacFarlane's Comments On The Scene

On January 21st, 2025, Seth MacFarlane, the creator of Family Guy, commented^[4] on the phrase’s origin via a tweet and said, "Since this has been trending, here’s a fun fact: ‘It insists upon itself’ was a criticism my college film history professor used to explain why he didn’t think ‘The Sound of Music’ was a great film. First-rate teacher, but I never quite followed that one."

This tweet also gained significant attention, amassing over 6 million views and 150,000 likes in a day (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References