Michaela Coel Smirk

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Part of a series on Black Mirror. [View Related Entries]

About

Michaela Coel Smirk is a reaction image that features actor Michael Smirk in a scene from the Netflix science fiction television series Black Mirror.

Origin

On December 29th, 2017, the fourth season of Black Mirror premiered on Netflix. The premiere episode, "USS Callister," features a moment where actor Michaela Coel looks toward the camera and smiles.

Three days later, on January 1st, 2018, Twitter ^[1] user @JoePassmore tweeted a screenshot from the episode of Coel looking at the camera and smiling. They captioned the post, "Nothing but respect for *my* captain," a reference to Nothing But Respect for My President.. The post (shown below) received more than 650 retweets and 3,100 likes in four months.

Spread

The following day, Twitter^[2] user @winonadickryder tweeted the image with the caption, "friend: 'BITCH OMFG I HAVE SUM TEA FOR YOU!!!' me:" The post (shown below, left) received more than 12,000 retweets and 33,000 likes in four months.

On January 4th, the official Netflix Twitter^[4] account published the image with the caption, "anyone: 'so, did you watch Black Mirr-' me:" The post (shown below, center) received more than 100 retweets and 550 likes in four months.

Throughout that week, more people added captions to the image. Twitter^[3] user @shookshack tweeted, "Pausing my music on the train to listen to a fight." The post (shown below, right) received more than 54,000 retweets and 188,000 likes in four months.

On January 7th, Michaela Coel responded^[5] to @shookshack's tweet by posting the image and the caption, "When becoming a meme was the 2018 goal you never knew you had." The post (shown below) received more than 3,700 retweets and 17,000 likes in four months.

Several media outlets published articles about the meme, including BuzzFeed, ^[6] Complex^[7] and more.