Jimmy Yelling at Howard

About

Jimmy Yelling at Howard or Saul Yelling at Howard is a scene from the Better Call Saul AMC television series in which the main protagonist Jimmy McGill (Saul Goodman) is walking down a court corridor yelling at Howard Hamlin, who is silently walking away from him. Since August 2021, the scene has been used as source material for video and GIF captions, with Jimmy and Howard often representing Soyjak and Chad archetypes.

Origin

On March 30th, 2020, season five episode seven, titled "JMM," of the drama television series Better Call Saul premiered.^[1] In one scene of the episode, the character Howard Hamlin, portrayed by Patrick Fabian, confronts the main protagonist Jimmy McGill (Saul Goodman), portrayed by Bob Odenkirk, about his suspicions that Jimmy has been actively disrupting his life, with Jimmy then losing his temper, blaming Howard for his brother's death and mocking and belittling him (scene shown below). Howard then starts walking down the corridor, ignoring Jimmy as he chases him and continues his rant.

Walk away, that's right, Howard. You know why I didn't take the job? 'Cause it's too small! I don't care about it! It's nothing to me! It's a bacterium! I travel in worlds you can't even imagine! You can't conceive of what I'm capable of! I'm so far beyond you! I'm like a god in human clothing! Lightning bolts shoot from my fingertips!

On July 29th, 2021, Tenor^[2] user Hungo posted a GIF of Jimmy yelling at Howard. On August 17th, Tenor^[3] user LongHorse posted the first GIF caption meme based on the GIF, speeding it up and captioning it, "ok" (shown below). In the following months, the image saw use as a reaction on Discord and Twitter.

Spread

The format did not see further spread until November 13th, 2021, when Tenor^[4] user
hakaseprofessor posted a Cope, Seethe, Mald GIF caption based on the GIF, which was used as a reaction in the following months (shown below, left). On December 3rd, 2021, Tenor^[5] user joshsn0tter posted a Santa Deniers meme based on the format (shown below, right).

On February 1st, 2022, Redditor^[6] BoTamByloCiemno posted a Minions Served Hitler meme that gained over 8,700 upvotes in five months in the /r/whenthe subreddit, popularizing the format in the community. On February 2nd, Redditor^[7] hmzaammar posted an L + Ratio meme that received over 10,200 upvotes in the same period (shown below, right).

In the following months, multiple viral GIF and video caption memes based on the scene were posted on Reddit, most notably in the /r/whenthe and /r/shitposting subreddits, and on other platforms.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References