"Knows What Sex Is" Grid

About

"Knows What Sex Is" Grid is a humorous two by two grid used to assign four people or characters based on whether they have sex and have awareness of what sex is. Spawned by a viral Penguins of Madagascar meme, the format gained popularity online in late March 2021.

Origin

The exact origin of the format is currently unconfirmed. On March 17th, 2021, Redditor fourtwentyy__ posted a humorous two by two table with "knows what sex is" and "doesn't know what sex is" columns and "fucks" and "doesn't fuck" rows, assigning a cell to each of the four Penguins of Madagascar (shown below). The post received over 21,200 upvotes in the /r/196^[1] subreddit in one month.

Spread

In the following days, the format received viral spread online. For example, on March 17th, 2021, Redditor Nutbuddy3 reposted the image, with the post gaining over 7,100 upvotes in /r/PoliticalCompassMemes^[2] in one month. On the same day, Instagram^[3] user ricecrispyeet reposted the meme, with the repost gaining nearly 170,000 likes in one month.

On March 17th, Redditor^[4] zosumx posted the earliest known derivative meme based on the format, a Team Fortress 2 meme that received over 1,700 upvotes in the /r/tf2shitposterclub subreddit in one month (shown below, left).

In late March and in April 2021, the format achieved moderate spread online. For example, on April 7th, 2020, Redditor^[5] lukety01 posted a Political Compass meme (shown below, center) that received over 1,300 upvotes in /r/PoliticalCompassMemes in two weeks. On the same day, Redditor^[6] nottherealkimjongun posted an edit of that meme (shown below, right), with their post gaining over 6,700 upvotes in the same period.

More viral versions of the meme were posted online in April 2021, primarily on Reddit and Facebook.

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References