Joker Watches TV

Submission 6,921

Part of a series on Joker (2019 Film). [View Related Entries]

About

Joker Watches TV refers to several meme formats based on a scene from the 2019 film Joker in which titular character Joker looks at a television screen while visiting his mother in a hospital. After the scene was featured in the film's trailer in late August 2019, it was used in various memes on Reddit, Instagram and other platforms.

Origin

On August 28th, a trailer for the then-upcoming film Joker premiered on YouTube.^[1] In one scene of the trailer, character Arthur Fleck (Joker) is shown visiting his mother in a hospital when he sees an episode of Live With Murray Franklin being broadcasted. After seeing his stand-up performance being featured in the episode, Fleck proceeds to smile, but changes his expression after realizing he is being made fun of.

Spread

Instagram Spread

On August 31st, 2019, Instagram user fatherthanos.mp4 posted the earliest known meme based on the scene, with the footage on the screen being replaced with the Wheelchair Cat GIF (shown below).^[2] The edit received over 12,100 views and 3,600 likes in three months.

The format did not see significant spread on Instagram until on October 14th, 2019, Instagram user bedrock.mp4 posted an "Uh Oh Stinky" edit of the video (shown below).^[3] The edit received over 40,700 views and 7,800 likes in three weeks. On the same day, bedrock.mp4 posted a green screen template for the video to YouTube.^[4]

In the following weeks, more Instagram users posted humorous edits of the video, with notable posts by bonelessjeff.mp4^[5] and muzza.mp4.^[6]

Reddit Spread

On October 2nd, 2019, an unknown Redditor posted a Spooktober / No Nut November meme based on the scene to /r/MemeEconomy subreddit, receiving over 40 upvotes before the post was deleted (shown below).^[7] It is currently unconfirmed whether this is the first instance of this image.

In the following days, the format gained limited spread on Reddit, with notable examples of the meme posted in /r/TheWalkingDeadGame,^[8] /r/joker^[9] and other subreddits.