Mr. Meeseeks

About

Mr. Meeseeks is a recurring character from the animated television show Rick and Morty on Adult Swim. Voiced by Justin Roiland, the name "Mr. Meeseeks" is used for all individual members of the Meeseeks species, which are blue male humanoids summoned through a Meeseeks box. They exist for short periods of time and function solely to complete a requested task, and once the task is fulfilled, Mr. Meeseeks will cease to exist. In memes, Meeseeks typically appears through a number of captioned shots from Rick and Morty, and this is particularly true for the Meeseeks originally assigned to help the character Jerry Smith with his golf skills.

Origin

Mr. Meeseeks first appeared on January 20th, 2014, in season 1, episode 5 of Rick and Morty, entitled "Meeseeks and Destroy." The first Mr. Meeseeks is summoned by Rick Sanchez (clip shown below).^[1] In this episode, hundreds of Meeseeks are created to help Jerry, but when he is unable to take two strokes off his golf game after two days, the Meeseeks suffer from existential dread and homicidal tendencies before attempting to kill Jerry.

The first known social media reaction to the Meeseeks was this tweet from Twitter^[3] user @StuckInBuffalo on January 21st, 2014 (seen below). It shares a notably violent moment from "Meeseeks and Destroy," captioned "Beware of angry blue men." From then on, Mr. Meeseeks was shared in screenshots and memes both in the Rick and Morty fandom and in standalone meme formats.

Spread

As of the season 4 finale, the Meeseeks have appeared in six episodes of Rick and Morty as of June 2021. Mr. Meeseeks is known for his dark quotes, such as "existence is pain to a Meeseeks, Jerry! And we will do anything to alleviate that pain!" and "I can’t take it anymore! I just want to die!"^[2] Mr. Meeseeks is also frequently introduced as a character in memes and comics with his catchphrase, "I’m Mr. Meeseeks, look at me!" He is featured in many different quotable memes taken directly from still images of the show, particularly in memes that are depressing or involve a person trying to do something impossible.

In the fourth season of the episode "Edge of Tomorty: Rick Die Repeat," Rick is forced to use a Kirkland-brand Meeseeks box after Morty steals his, spawning Kirkland Mr. Meeseeks, a humanoid with red skin and yellow hair who does not care about completing his tasks. Kirkland Mr. Meeseks is often used in memes alongside Mr. Meeseeks to represent something’s inferior counterpart. On November 15th, 2019, Redditor u/dunkinbooth posted a Kirkland Meeseeks meme to /r/memes^[6] that received 304 upvotes and four comments in six months (shown below).

On January 29th, 2020, another example was posted by Redditor u/YouTubeLeizy, who shared a meme to /r/memes^[4] that received 154 upvotes and eight comments in six months (seen below).

Mr. Meeseeks is also featured often in YouTube videos. For example, on March 27th, 2020, YouTuber^[5] and artist 3D Print Guy uploaded this video, earning 2.9 million views, in which art renditions of Mr. Meeseeks and Kirkland Meeseeks are pitted against one another in the task of hiding a body.

Related Memes

Nihilism Memes

Nihilism is a mindset and philosophy perceiving life as meaningless. Mr. Meeseeks is often used as a demotivational figure in nihilism memes.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References