Orphan-Crushing Machine

Submission 28,421

Part of a series on "Heartwarming" Headline Parodies. [View Related Entries]

About

Orphan-Crushing Machine is a metaphor for "heartwarming" news stories about someone remedying the immediate effects of a sociopolitical issue that ignore the root cause of said issue. The catchphrase and metaphor satirize these stories by comparing them to a story of a person raising money to keep 200 orphans from being crushed where nobody questions why an orphan-crushing machine exists in the first place.

Origin

On September 24th, 2020, Twitter^[1] user @pookleblinky described "heartwarming" human interest stories in the United States by comparing them to a story of a man raising $20,000 to save 200 orphans from being crushed in the orphan-crushing machine, with nobody taking issue with the machine existing or being used. The tweet (shown below) garnered over 42,200 retweets and 149,000 likes in three years.

In the same thread, @pookleblinky posted three additional tweets,^[2]^[3]^[4] building upon the joke (shown below).

Spread

On September 25th, 2020, an unknown Redditor reposted the image to the /r/LateStageCapitalism^[5] subreddit, where it gained over 710 upvotes in three years.

On October 7th. 2020. /r/OrphanCrushingMachine^[6] subreddit was created with the purpose of gathering news stories that the metaphor can be applied to. The subreddit amassed over 95,000 members in three years.

In the following years, both the screenshot of the original tweet and the phrase "orphan-crushing machine" achieved virality on social media as a way to comment on news stories that fit the metaphor. For example, on November 21st, 2021, Twitter^[7] user @SaulTortellini replied with the screenshot to a story of a 13-year-old boy who used his Make-A-Wish to feed his city's homeless for a year. The reply gained over 5,100 retweets and 44,300 likes in two years (shown below).

On January 30th, 2023, Twitter^[8] user @dynameld described MrBeast's "1,000 Blind People See for the First Time" video as "an orphan-crushing machine moment," with the tweet gaining over 30 retweets and 2,400 likes in three months (shown below, left). On February 14th, Twitter^[9] user @autisticpawg posted a meme referencing the metaphor that gained over 9,900 retweets and 74,300 likes in two months (shown below, right).

"Heartwarming" Headline Parodies

'Heartwarming' Headline Parodies refers to a series of posts parodying news headlines that present various grim situations as "heartwarming." The trend gained popularity on Twitter following a news article about a Texas teen who gave up her college savings to pay her family's rent in order to prevent eviction.