Officer Flying POV

Submission 9,358

Part of a series on POV Memes. [View Related Entries]

About

Officer Flying POV, also known as Cop Flying POV, refers to a POV, fisheye, bodycam photo of a cop jumping at the camera, appearing like he is flying towards the viewer to arrest them. The image was allegedly AI-generated and first appeared on Reddit in early 2023. Continuing into the year, it became a notable reaction image and was paired with various captions that mostly outlined a scenario that would prompt someone's arrest.

Origin

The earliest discovered upload of the Officer Flying POV image was posted to /r/humansarespaceorcs^[1] on March 19th, 2023, by Redditor Abnegazher, who captioned it from the perspective of an alien, writing, "Foolish humans! Anyone can steal of them! They're too dumb! And that 'psychic flying cops' rumor is a jok-AHCK!" The post gained over 450 upvotes in five months (shown below).

The image itself (shown below) is seemingly AI-generated, predominantly due to the strange-looking hands of the cops, a known indicator of AI art. Also, in comment sections on Reddit^[2] and iFunny ^[3] where the image was reposted, many alleged that it was AI-generated, additionally referencing the strange appearances of the car, trees and houses in the background.

Spread

The image was quickly reposted to /r/police^[4] on March 19th, 2023, gaining over 410 upvotes in five months. In the comment section^[2] of the post, Redditors reiterated their belief that it was AI-generated.

Despite a March origin, the image didn't gain predominant spread until it was posted by iFunnier^[5] @MatPat_MemeTheory on June 14th, 2023, with the caption, "Pov: You are going 36 ina 35." The post gained roughly 24,100 smiles in two months (shown below, left). On August 6th, 2023, the Facebook ^[6] page iSteppedInMeme captioned the image, "Pov: you reached for your ID after being asked to present it," gaining roughly 7,000 reactions in three days (shown below, right).

The Facebook^[6] post went viral via reposts on both iFunny^[7] and 9GAG ^[8] in early August 2023. Soon after, on August 7th, 2023, users on the website formerly known as Twitter^[9]^[10] went viral for posts that captioned the image.