People Who Go Up Two Stairs at a Time

Submission 15,786

About

People Who Go Up Two Stairs at a Time refers to a series of jokes and memes about feigning awe at people who can walk up stairs two at a time.

Origin

Referencing people who can walk the stairs two at a time has existed since as early as 1977, when in the book Quote Unquote, Joan Welsh's quote states, "A man's health can be judged by which he takes two at a time -- pills or stairs."^[1]^[2]

Spread

Over the next several decades, various articles have been written about the phenomenon. On December 13th, 2012, The Daily Mail^[3] published the article "The cheat's guide to exercise: Taking the stairs one at a time burns MORE calories than leaping up them."

On January 10th, 2017, Instagram ^[4] user @ScottyScottyOxenFree posted a Game of Thrones meme featuring a character in awe of another walking up stairs two at a time. The post received more than 390 likes in less than two years.

Later that year, The Tab^[5] published an article called "Is it just me or does literally every guy take the stairs two at a time? An investigation." The post featured various tweets of people talking about the act (examples below).

The following year, Redditor ^[6] SirDeep posted a Silent Protector meme referencing "two steps at a time." The post received more than 2,300 points (98% upvoted) and 70 comments (shown below). Over the next several months, various similar image macros and object labeling memes were posted online (see various examples).