Kirby's Calling the Police

About

Kirby's Calling the Police refers to an exploitable image of Kirby from Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards holding a mobile phone against a black background above which are the words "Kirby's Calling the Police." Online, it's often used as a standalone reaction image or in conjunction with memes and images that depict something of questionable legality.

Origin

On March 31st, 2018, Imgur user "Reallundy" posted the image to the site.^[1] That same day, user "EMANRESU15" submitted the image to ShitPostBot 5000 where it currently has a rating of 2.^[2]

Spread

The meme began spreading in reference to things of questionable legality shortly after. For example, on May 30th, 2018, Redditor InvMiqx posted it in response to an anime clip, gaining over 6,000 points (shown below, left). On February 3rd, 2019, Redditor hetero_observe posted a similar image, gaining over 400 points (shown below, right).

Over the course of 2019, the meme spread across various platforms. On January 2nd, 2019, Reddit user "ssavior_" posted a meme containing the image to the r/memes subreddit (shown below, left).^[3] A month later, on February 10th, Reddit user "HolyRollerFliper" made a post entitled "Kirby's Calling the Police!" in reference to the meme despite the fact the post itself did not contain the image (shown below, right).^[4] On February 14th, 2019, Twitter user "Zoos_Hamster" posted the image in response to user "raysipe".^[5]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External references