Nerd Emoji

About

Nerd Emoji or Ooh This Is A Great Album But The Mixing refers to a series of image macros and memes using a 3D stock image of a nerd face Emoji to make fun of largely subjective technical arguments that people in a given fandom, particularly music nerds, make to call something bad. The emote was first uploaded to stock image sites in 2019 and became the subject of memes in January 2022, becoming popularized over the following months as an exploitable caption change meme format.

Origin

Sometime in 2019, a 3D animated non-Unicode Emoji depicting a stereotypical nerd with large glasses, buck teeth and freckles, was uploaded to stock imagery sites including Shutterstock^[1] (shown below).

On August 11th, 2021, Tenor^[11] user swaggyWalter posted a GIF where the Emoji transitions between a number of angles (shown below).

On January 13th, 2022, Twitter^[2] user anglwntr posted an image macro using the image, captioned, "Ooh this is a great album but ooooh the mixing ohh I can't stand the mixing," making fun of music nerds who denounce an otherwise good album for bad mixing, gaining over 48,000 likes and 3,300 retweets in three months (shown below).

Nerd Emoji Fixing Glasses

Alternatively, an animated non-Unicode Emoji showing a nerdy character fixing his glasses is used in similar memes where a complaint or nerdy caption is placed over the GIF. These memes became increasingly popular on Tenor^[12] around July 2021 (example shown below).

Spread

The meme by memesforscumbags was reposted by a variety of accounts, including Instagram^[3] user minecraftgamergirl6969 and Facebook^[4] page I Wish I Was At Home Listening To Swans 2 on January 21st, gaining over 11,600 likes on the former and 1,100 reactions in just over a month. On January 15th, Instagram^[5] user spookcraft posted the emoji over the cover for My Bloody Valentine's 1991 album "Loveless," gaining over 750 likes in two months (shown below).

On January 25th, Instagram^[6] user dopecontent.inc2 posted a version of the meme replacing the latter half of the caption with "ooooh the artist is a reprehensible person with multiple allegations," gaining over 380 likes in just over a month (shown below, left). On February 4th, Instagram^[7] user neem_official posted a version of the meme about loving a video game but hating the fandom, gaining over 1,400 likes in a month (shown below, right).

On February 8th, YouTuber^[8] blarf posted a fancam video featuring the Emoji from various angles as well as other nerdy Emojis, gaining over 23,600 views in a month (shown below).

More ironic versions of the meme became popular on Reddit's /r/whenthe^[9][10] board later that month. On February 21st, Redditor Keeperofbeesandtruth posted a version of the meme to the board, gaining over 5,900 upvotes in just over a week (shown below, left). On March 2nd, Redditor glandburger posted another version of the meme, gaining over 9,200 upvotes in two days (shown below, right).

Templates

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References