Rami Malek Video Message

Submission 7,251

About

Rami Malek Video Message refers to a series of memes and jokes based on a viral video of actor Rami Malek refusing to take a video message with a fan and instead requesting a photograph.

Origin

On October 29th, 2018, Twitter user @enemyfilm tweeted,^[1] "THIS IS PROBABLY THE MOST EMBARRASSING THING TO EVER HAPPEN TO ME." The caption was followed by a video of the user and actor Rami Malek posing for "selfie." The woman asks if he can "say hi to her friends." He responds, "No, but we can take a picture." The post received more than 16,000 retweets and 96,000 likes in 24 hours.

Spread

Following the post, @enemyfilm tweeted,^[2] "homeboy literally swiped my camera to Photo HIMSELF cause he saw it was a video nah im done with video messages." She then clarified, writing "i worded this wrong he didnt take a photo OF HIMSELF- i meant he swiped the camera options until it was on 'Photo' (i really hope that made sense)." The post received more than 90 retweets and 1,700 likes in 24 hours (shown below).

Following the post, people began posting jokes about the incident on Twitter. That evening, Twitter^[3] user @nycstarks tweeted, "rami seeing the phone is on video mode and not photo mode:" The post featured a photo of Malek looking concerned and received more than 280 retweets and 3,000 likes within 24 hours (shown below, left). Twitter^[4] user @sunnydelphia tweeted an image of a boy holding his hand out with the word "phone" above the palm. They captioned the post, "rami malek when he saw the phone on video mode." The post received more than 675 retweets and 4,500 likes in 24 hours.

Twitter^[5] user @ladybirdmp3 tweeted a One Perfect Shot parody, posting a deep-fried version of the encounter with the caption "'call me by your name (2017). The post received more than 610 retweets and 3,000 likes in 24 hours (shown below, right).

Several media outlets covered the meme, including The Daily Dot, ^[6] The Cut,^[7] BuzzFeed ^[8] and more. Additionally, Twitter^[9] published a Moments page on the incident.