Raiden and Armstrong Shaking Hands

Submission 11,259

Part of a series on Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. [View Related Entries]

About

Raiden and Armstrong Shaking Hands is a clip from a cutscene in the 2013 video game Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance in which the characters Raiden and Senator Armstrong shake hands and hug each other. In 2022, the clip gained virality as the source material for GIF and video captions, with the video caption Male Detected, Opinion Tolerated seeing viral spread.

Origin

On February 19th, 2013, the hack-and-slash video game Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, a spin-off installment in the Metal Gear series, was released.^[1] The final boss fight of the game, a duel between the protagonist Raiden and the main villain Senator Armstrong, includes a scene in which Armstrong seemingly convinces Raiden to agree with him and join his cause, with the two shaking hands and hugging. Raiden's change of heart, however, is quickly revealed to be a ruse, as Raiden calls Armstrong "batshit insane" and throws him across a platform (scene shown below).

- I'll rid this world of pointless wars, Jack.
- I was wrong. You're not greedy… You're batshit insane!

The earliest discovered GIF caption based on the scene was shared by Tenor^[2] user kruziikdova on December 24th, 2020 (authorship unconfirmed; shown below, left). However, the GIF and video caption trend did not start until early January 2022, when an unknown user shared a meme based on the clip, captioned "Male Detected, Opinion Tolerated" and set to the song Standing Here I Realize. On January 4th, Twitter^[3] user @brailawraith made the earliest found repost of the meme (January 9th YouTube reupload shown below, right). The phrase itself originated earlier.

Spread

In the following weeks, the video caption received viral spread online through reposts and through being used as a reaction on Twitter, TikTok and other websites. For example, on January 9th, 2022, YouTuber^[4] KTZ8 reuploaded the meme, with the video gaining over 1.3 million views in three months. On January 11th, Redditor^[5] GamingMoment3162 reposted the GIF to the /r/hogrida subreddit, where it gained over 680 upvotes in the same period. On January 16th, Twitter^[6] account @LmfaoWith reposted the video caption, with the post accumulating over 217,000 views.

The viral spread of the meme inspired further use of the clip for video captions and GIF captions on Reddit, iFunny and Twitter. On February 16th, 2022, Twitter^[7] user @_trollface posted a The Taliban Watching The U.S. Deploy Freddy Fazbear meme, which gained over 70 retweets and 420 likes in one month (shown below, left). On February 16th, 2022, Redditor^[8] riftdelash posted a "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure" meme that gained over 8,400 upvotes in /r/ShitPostCrusaders in the same period (shown below, center). On March 9th, iFunny^[9] user Great_Memes_And_Reposts posted an I Love Lean!! / Mug Root Beer meme, which gained over 33,400 smiles on the app in one month (shown below, right).

In the following month, more viral videos and GIF captions based on the clip were shared online, many of them in the /r/whenthe subreddit. For example, on March 13th, 2022, Redditor^[10] Shoddy-Team-7199 posted a GIF caption that gained over 37,200 upvotes in three weeks and started the Cheerleader Plot meme.