Rick and Morty Fans

About

Rick and Morty Fans refers to a series of jokes, memes and references to the self-congratulatory nature that some perceive fans of the animated television series Rick and Morty posses. Most of the jokes focus on fans of the show seeing themselves and the show to be hyper-intelligent and thus only accessible to a select few.

Origin

The series of memes comes from a backlash against the show that began sometime during Rick and Morty's third season in summer 2017, particularly following the popularity of the Pickle Rick meme. The backlash spurred even further due to the rise of the infamous To Be Fair, You Have to Have a Very High IQ to Understand Rick and Morty copypasta.

While the copypasta may have come from a prior Facebook comment, the earliest available posting comes from a Reddit ^[1] comment on July 29th, 2017. That day, Redditor Niekisch posted in the subreddit /r/CringeAnarchy:

To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Rick and Morty. The humour is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of theoretical physics most of the jokes will go over a typical viewer's head. There's also Rick's nihilistic outlook, which is deftly woven into his characterisation- his personal philosophy draws heavily from Narodnaya Volya literature, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these jokes, to realise that they're not just funny- they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike Rick & Morty truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the humour in Rick's existential catchphrase "Wubba Lubba Dub Dub," which itself is a cryptic reference to Turgenev's Russian epic Fathers and Sons. I'm smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Dan Harmon's genius wit unfolds itself on their television screens. What fools.. how I pity them. 😂

And yes, by the way, i DO have a Rick & Morty tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It's for the ladies' eyes only- and even then they have to demonstrate that they're within 5 IQ points of my own (preferably lower) beforehand. Nothin personnel kid 😎

Spread

As the copypasta spread over the summer, anti-Rick and Morty memes that take on the persona of the pretentious fan began to rise in popularity. On September 7th, the Instagram ^[2] meme account @dabmoms posted a picture of an elderly man clutching his chest with the caption "Lady: He's having a heart attack. Is anyone here a doctor? Rick and Morty fan: it actually takes a certain level of intelligence to appreciate the subtle genius of Dan Harmon's humor." The post (shown below) received more than 12,000 likes in 16 hours.

Later that month, jokes and memes about Rick and Morty fans began appearing on the /r/dankmemes subreddit with many of them adopting the "To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Rick and Morty" the copypasta as a subject title. On September 27th, Redditor^[3] theevilnerd42 posted an exploitable webcomic in which the subject finds intelligent life in the universe as soon as a man says "I watch Rick and Morty." The post (shown below, left) received more than 2,200 points (95% upvoted) and 50 comments in less than a week.

Meanwhile, other Redditors^[4][5] used the idea of mocking the supposed intelligence of Rick and Morty fans through the Stress Powered Light Bulb exploitable (shown below, center and right).

Throughout the month, joke continued to spread on the Internet. On September 29th, Twitter ^[6] user @IHATEDOOGAL2 tweeted "person: so why should we accept you into harvard university? me: i watch rick and morty person: oh right this way sir,i apologise." The post (shown below) received more than 7,000 retweets and 20,000 likes in less than a week.

On October 3rd, 2017, The Daily Dot^[7] published an article about the rise of the meme entitled "Self-important ‘Rick and Morty’ fans get owned in this new meme."

Various Examples

External References