About

Now Laugh / Laugh at the Image refer to a series of ironic memes executed in the style of demotivational posters or image macros captioned with the request to laugh in a variety of forms. The series originated on Instagram in late July and spread to other ironic communities in the following days and has primarily been used to poke fun at the mainstream Reddit culture.

Precursor

On July 14th, 2019, Instagram user annoyingorangefanpage made a two-part post consisting of a popular /r/dankmemes post and an image of SpongeBob SquarePants screaming captioned "LAUGH!!!" as a way to poke fun at the mainstream Reddit culture (shown below, left).^[1] The post gained over 140 likes in one month, with the user making more similar posts in the following days. On July 19th, annoyingorangefanpage posted another image of SpongeBob captioned "LAUGH!!!" (shown below, right).^[2]

Origin

On July 27th, 2019, Instagram user enlarged.cantelope posted a demotivational poster-style meme captioned "Laugh, Laugh at the Image," ridiculing the Reddit meme culture (shown below).^[3] The post gained over 310 likes in one month.

Spread

On Augsut 4th, 2019, Redditor daigol reposted the enlarged.cantelope's image to /r/okbuddyretard subreddit,^[4] with the post gaining over 6,900 upvotes in three weeks. In the following days, the format gained significant spread in the community,^[5] with similar posts also appearing in other ironic subreddits such as /r/okbuddybaka,^[6] on iFunny^[7] and Instagram.^[8]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References