My Desert. My Arrakis. My Dune.

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About

"My Desert. My Arrakis. My Dune." is a line said by Dune character Vladimir Harkonnen in the 2021 film Dune: Part One. Starting in 2021, the line achieved popularity as as a caption for various memes, often being paired with images of corpulent people and animals.

Origin

On August 27th, 2021, the official social media accounts^[1]^[2] for Dune: Part One released a teaser for the film which featured Stellan Skarsgård as Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. The teaser features a line about controlling the planet Arrakis said by the Baron in the film.

On January 14th, 2022, YouTube^[3] user adriandotg uploaded the scene in which Baron Harkonnen says the line. The upload (shown below) accumulated over 1.8 million views in two years.

I said I would not harm them, and I shall not. But Arrakis is Arrakis. And the desert takes the weak. My desert. My Arrakis. My Dune.

On August 30th, 2021, Redditor jwin2321 posted the earliest found meme based on the line to the /r/dune^[4] subreddit, where it received over 80 upvotes in three years (shown below).

Spread

The line saw further popularization following the premiere of Dune: Part One in October 2021. Notably, on November 10th, 2021, Redditor mjfo posted a They Don't Know meme that received over 4,700 upvotes in the /r/dunememes^[5] subreddit and was widely circulated^[6] in the following months (shown below).

The line saw a surge in popularity following the release of the sequel to the first film in February 2024. For example, on March 7th, 2024, X^[7] user @punishedcleo posted a Mamma Mia meme that received over 310 reposts and 5,200 likes in four days (shown below, left). On March 10th, 2024, X^[8] user @Will_the_Rose posted a meme that gained over 2,000 reposts and 57,000 likes in one day (shown below, right).