Opposites Attract / Tug of War

About

Opposites Attract, also known as Tug of War, is a cartoon by webcomic artist Stonetoss in which a participant of a tug-of-war is surprised to discover who his teammates and opponents are. First posted in 2018, the cartoon saw active use as a meme format in the following years, gaining particular popularity in political memes.

Origin

On September 11th, 2018, cartoon artist StoneToss posted a four-panel cartoon titled "Opposites Attract" to his website^[1] (shown below). In the cartoon, a libertarian is taking part in tug of war and is surprised to discover a fascist on his team and a communist and a capitalist pulling together on the other team, commenting, "Huh?"

Spread

Earliest found edits of the cartoon were posted online in early 2019, although earlier edits could exist. On January 12th, 2019, iFunny^[2] user commie posted the earliest discovered edit, a Bone Hurting Juice version that gained 14 smiles in five years(shown below, left). On February 9th, 2019, Redditor SpookyBolshevik posted a meme that gained over 130 upvotes in /r/stupidpol^[3] in the same period (shown below, right).

On August 31st, 2020, iFunny^[4] user Colaws posted the earliest version of the meme to go viral, a post about the nuclear energy discourse that was featured on the app and garnered over 13,200 smiles in three years (shown below). In the following years, the image was widely circulated online, including multiple reposts on iFunny^[5] and Reddit.^[6]

Starting in 2021, multiple versions of the meme went viral online as users labeled the four characters in the cartoon to comment on surprising alliances and conflicts of interests. For example, on March 2nd, 2022, iFunny^[7] user Animefaganismo17_2 posted a meme referencing the 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine that received over 7,600 smiles on the app in two years (shown below, left). On September 17th, 2022, Redditor Solid_Snark posted an Execute Order 66 meme based on the format that received over 5,500 upvotes in the /r/PrequelMemes subreddit^[8] in one year (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References