Man Dodging a Kettle

Submission 7,582

Part of a series on Exploitables. [View Related Entries]

About

Man Dodging a Kettle or Woman Throwing a Kettle also known as Kettle Matrix Dodge is a stock photo redraw and photoshop template of a man dodging a kettle thrown at him by a woman, presumably his wife, by arching himself backward in an exaggerated way, similar in execution to the Neo dodging bullets scene in The Matrix. The image first became the subject of memes in 2013 and saw a boost in virality in 2024 as a redraw template after it was posted to X (Twitter) that February.

Origin

On March 8th, 2013, Facebook^[1] page ജംബ്ബനും തുംബ്ബനും (jambanum thumbanum) posted a demotivational poster meme using a stock image of a man Matrix-dodging a kettle thrown by a woman, presumably his wife, captioning the image, "Matrix Home Edition," garnering around nine interactions in 11 years (shown below). This is the earliest known meme using the image.

Purportedly, the photo was taken by photographer Bill Wadman in 2013.^[9] On February 9th, 2023, X^[10] user @PatGraziosi made a post revealing this information, also claiming that he was the subject of the photograph and sharing two behind-the-scenes photos from the shoot, writing, "LMFAO!! This IS me. What a wild thing to wake up to […] He treated me to bagels after this. It was really fun!" (shown below).

Spread

The image was the subject of several other memes throughout the 2010s. On April 29th, 2013, X^[2] user @ShwrThght posted a slightly different version of the "Matrix Home Edition" meme that gained over 100 likes in 11 years, which was posted to 9GAG^[3] on April 10th, 2014, garnering over 5,900 upvotes in the same span of time (shown below, left). On October 29th, 2016, the image was posted to /r/photoshopbattles,^[4] inspiring several photoshops (example shown below, right).

On February 8th, 2024, X^[5] user @PANgloss_arte posted the image, writing, "just found one of the craziest stock pics ever," garnering over 47,000 likes and 6,600 reposts in a day. X users began posting redraws and photoshops of the image in the quote-reposts.

That day, X^[6] user @sketching204 quote-reposted it, writing, "this is what ai slop is taking from us," garnering over 95,000 likes in a day. On February 9th, X^[7]^[8] users @BrockSolidART and @cadence_rx33 posted edits that gained over 50,000 likes and 900 likes respectively in a day (shown below, left and right).