Marinara Flag

Submission 20,823

Part of a series on Red Flag Emoji 🚩. [View Related Entries]

About

Marinara Flag is a different way of saying Red Flag that's used similarly to the Red Flag Emoji 🚩. The slang variation was inspired by a 2022 Reddit post on the "Am I The Asshole" subreddit, also known as AITA or /r/AmItheAsshole. In it, the Redditor relayed a story about her sister's boyfriend who got angry when she corrected him about the translation of the word "marinara" not being "red." The catchphrase was repeated in many comments going into June 2022 where the oversaturation of the "Marinara Flag" comments became cringeworthy to other Redditors.

Origin

On May 26th, 2022, Redditor NotRedAndWhite (since-deleted) made a post to /r/AmItheAsshole^[1] titled, "AITA for correcting someone at dinner?" NotRedAndWhite stated that she went out to dinner with her husband, sister and her sister's new boyfriend named Paul to an Italian restaurant. Paul talked about how the word for "red" in Italian was "marinara," and the word for "white" was "alfredo," however, Redditor NotRedAndWhite knew this was incorrect, knowing the words were "rosso" and "bianco" and even pointed it out on the wine menu. Paul then got angry and started yelling, calling NotRedAndWhite and her husband "stupid assholes." Although the post has since been removed by the AITA moderators, it received roughly 20,600 upvotes over the course of 11 days. It can still be accessed via an Old Reddit^[2] link (shown below).

In the comment section of the post, Redditor ResponsibilityNo3245^[3] commented, "Your sister should be taking Paul's reaction as a huge marinara flag," earning roughly 69,600 upvotes over the course of 11 days and subsequently coining the term.

Spread

Within the comment section of the original post, more Redditors chimed in with their own Italian pasta sauce-related jokes. For instance, on May 26th, 2022, Redditor katsikakifrikase^[4] commented, "I surrender to your mastery / waves alfredo flag," earning roughly 29,900 upvotes in 11 days. Redditor My_Son_Absalom^[5] also posted a comment on May 26th that read, "Such wonderful wordplay. I'm turning pesto with envy," earning roughly 14,900 upvotes in 11 days.

Going into the remainder of May 2022 and into June 2022, Redditors a part of the /r/AmItheAsshole subreddit continued to reference "Marinara Flag 🚩" in the comment sections of multiple posts. For instance, on May 30th, 2022, Redditor ShortWoman^[6] posted a comment reading, "Someday someone will post on one of the Ask subreddits where the whole marinara flag thing comes from. We can say we were there!" earning roughly 1,600 upvotes over the course of seven days.

The "Marinara Flag" comment trend became so saturated that it started to receive backlash, specifically on the opposing /r/AmItheAngel subreddit. For instance, on June 3rd, 2022, Redditor NigerianPrinxess posted a Laughing SpongeBob to /r/AmItheAngel^[7] that earned roughly 1,300 upvotes in three days (shown below).