Phil Swift Slaps On Flex Tape

Submission 45,601

Part of a series on Flex Tape. [View Related Entries]

About

Phil Swift Slaps On Flex Tape refers to a two-panel image showing the Flex Tape spokesman Phil Swift slapping a piece of Flex Tape onto a leaking water tank. Starting in January 2019, the image gained spread as an object-labeling meme, with a variation in which the tape and Phil Swift's hand let through water gaining popularity in early November 2019.

Origin

On January 12th, 2017, American adhesive manufacturer Swift Response uploaded a commercial for its tape product Flex Tape to YouTube.^[1]^[2] In the commercial, company spokesman Phil Swift slaps a piece of Flex Tape onto a leaking water tank, stopping the leak. The commercial accumulated over 17.8 million views in three years and, following a September 2017 review by YouTuber JonTron, ^[3] achieved the status of a meme.^[4]

On January 29th, 2017, an unknown Redditor posted a GIF based on the video to /r/gif subreddit, gaining over 330 upvotes in three years (shown below, left).^[5] On the same day, the GIF was added to GIPHY.^[6] On December 10th, 2018, Redditor SwAg_LaMp posted a one-panel meme showing Phil Swift attaching Flex Tape captioned "Back of laptop: *exists* / College girls with stickers:", with the meme receiving over 25,100 upvotes in six months.^[7] Between January 7th and 27th 2019, imgflip user whosscruffylookin95 posted a two-panel format based on the GIF and referencing the post, with an additional caption added in (shown below, right).^[8] This image is the earliest known example of the format.

Spread

The format saw a moderate spread online in the following months, with more examples of the meme appearing on Reddit, Imgflip and other websites.^[9]^[10] A February 21st, 2019, repost of an Apex Legends / Fortnite meme by iFunny user Freath received over 52,300 smiles in nine months (reupload shown below, left).^[11] Starting in early July 2019, the format saw an increase in popularity on Reddit. For example, a July 21st, post by Redditor Kennythedingus received over 21,200 upvotes (shown below, right).^[12]

Leaking Hand Version

On November 5th, 2019, Redditor jaameszxc posted a meme with the second panel altered to show both Flex Tape and Phil Swift's hand to let through water. The meme gained over 77,500 upvotes in one day (shown below).^[13]

On the same day, Redditor AwwHeelijk posted the altered template to /r/MemeTemplatesOfficial subreddit, gaining over 2,000 upvotes in one day.^[14] In the following hours, multiple notable memes based on the format were posted on Reddit.