Kramer, What's Going On In There?

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Kramer, What's Going On In There? refers to an exploitable image macro taken from a 1996 episode of Seinfeld where Jerry Seinfeld asks Kramer (played by Michael Richards) what is going on inside his apartment that is emitting a bright red light. The template was first used on Facebook in late 2021 but picked up in abundance in early 2022, where meme creators inserted their own subculture references and photoshopped the original scene.

Origin

The template originates from episode eight of Seinfeld's eighth season called, "The Chicken Roaster."^[1] In the episode, a chicken restaurant with an unusually bright-red sign opens up across the street from Kramer's apartment. The restaurant's sign is so bright that it drives Kramer crazy and Jerry and Kramer end up switching apartments in the episode. When Jerry first notices the red light in the episode, he asks Kramer, "What's going on in there?"

The clip from the episode was uploaded to YouTube ^[2] on August 23rd, 2009, by the channel SolidSnake986 (shown below). Over the course of 11 years, the video gained roughly 250,200 views and 800 likes.

The image macro template was first used on Facebook in September 2021 in the Facebook^[17] group Seinfeld SoupPosting. The earliest publicly available meme based on the format, a crossover post between Facebook groups Seinfeld SoupPosting and Halo Plasmaposting, was reposted to Twitter by the Twitter^[18] page @Plasmaposting on September 23rd, 2021. The meme (shown below) references the Halo video game franchise. Over the course of three months, the tweet received over 280 likes.

Spread

Starting in October 2021, the format achieved notable popularity in Seinfeld SoupPosting Facebook group.^[19]^[20] On October 24th, 2021, Twitter^[3] user _QuietLeader_ reposted another version of the format (shown below), a meme referencing the Dune universe. The meme was most likely inspired by the release of the Dune (2021) movie around that time. The tweet received 178 likes over the course of two months.

On November 20th, 2021, Facebook^[14] user Chris Scott posted a meme to the Star Trek Shitposting Facebook group (shown below, left) that referenced "The Rite of Ascension"^[5] within the Klingon people of Star Trek. The post received roughly 1,000 reactions over the course of a month and a half.

Facebook^[15] page Geek Club posted a different version of Scott's meme the next day (shown below, right), replacing the text with yellow, subtitle text. Their post received 276 reactions in the same amount of time.

The template circulated Facebook going into December 2021. For instance, Facebook^[16] user Erik Saucedo posted a version of the template on December 19th to the Halo Plasmaposting Facebook group. The meme (shown below) received 976 reactions over three weeks.

In January 2022, the template was used en masse on Twitter. On January 6th, 2022, Twitter^[4] user derpman47 reposted the Star Trek version of the meme. The tweet received roughly 20,300 likes over the course of four days. It was also reposted to platforms like Tumblr ^[6] on the same day, where it received roughly 9,200 notes over the same amount of time.

The first variant on Twitter was posted within the replies of the above Twitter meme by Twitter^[7] user owainjam on January 7th, 2022. The meme (shown below) references Michael Richard's infamous "N-word rant"^[8] at the L.A. Laugh Factory in 2007 — a stand-up set that he was subsequently canceled for. The meme received 47 likes in three days.

More Twitter users exploited the template going into the rest of January. For instance, Twitter^[9] user buckadeath posted a version on January 8th, 2022 (shown below, left), that referenced Balrogs from The Lord of the Rings universe. The meme received roughly 48,500 likes in two days. Twitter^[10] user SilentDawnLB also posted a variant on January 8th (shown below, right) that referenced the movie The Thing. Their meme gained roughly 17,900 likes in two days.

The trend spread to platforms like Instagram and Facebook on January 8th, 2022, where Instagrammers like trashcanpaul^[11] posted versions of the template. Trashcanpaul, for instance, received roughly 62,700 likes over the course of two days. Additionally, Facebook^[12] page Classical Studies memes for Hellenistic teens received roughly 3,300 reactions for its meme that used the template.

Video memes using the template appeared on Instagram as the format became more widespread. For instance, Instagram^[13] page fakejerryseinfeld posted a video on January 9th, 2022, that referenced the movie Enter the Void (shown below). The post received roughly 1,000 likes in less than 24 hours.

As the template was exploited across platforms, meme creators continued to change the color of the light's tint in order to reference other movies and subcultures like The Matrix, Shrek and Uncut Gems, among others. Additionally, multiple versions of the template were posted in the Facebook^[17] group Seinfeld SoupPosting going into January.