Running Arnold Schwarzenegger

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About

Running Arnold Schwarzenegger refers to a still image of the character Hercules from the 1970 film Hercules in New York, portrayed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, running before performing a long jump. Online, the still image was circulated as an exploitable and reaction and in Me Leaving Barnes & Nobles and Time Travel: Is Invented memes.

Origin

On February 25th, 1970, fantasy comedy film Hercules in New York, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as Hercules, premiered in the United States.^[1] In one scene of the film, Hercules competes in the long jump and other sports disciplines against professional athletes. On July 7th, 2012, YouTube^[2] user Amazingly_randy posted the scene to YouTube, where it gained over 25.2 million views in eight years (shown below).

The still image of Hercules running before the jump was used in multiple news articles about Arnold Schwarzenegger's acting career; for example, on May 8th, 2015, it appeared in an article by ScreenAnarchy (still image shown below).^[3]

Prior to September 30th, 2016, Instagram account themgainz_official posted the earliest known meme based on the image^[4] (original post no longer available, shown below).

Spread

Prior to March 2020, the image saw minor presence in memes online, primarily on Facebook. For example, on February 13th, 2020, Spanish Facebook^[5] group La momeria posted a meme that received 42 reactions and 43 shares in six months.

On March 19th, 2020, Instagram^[6] account dark_iron_gains posted a meme in which the image of running Schwarzenegger was superimposed over a photograph of a Barnes & Nobles book store, captioned "me leaving Barnes & Nobles after moving all the atheist authors to the cringe section" (shown below). The post received over 4,000 likes in five months and was circulated online in the following days.^[7]

On April 19th, 2020, the Twitter^[8] account of the gaming website Niche Gamer reposted a recaptioned version of the meme about the Harry Potter book series, with the post gaining over 110 retweets and 640 likes (shown below). The post received viral spread online in the following weeks; for example, an May 1st, repost by @starrdiver^[9] received over 2,200 retweets and 7,700 likes in three months. The post prompted the moderate spread of the Me Leaving Barnes & Nobles memes based on the edited image in the following months.

On July 2nd, 2020, Redditor Korina-chan posted a Girls vs. Boys / Harambe meme based on the image that received over 20,500 upvotes in one month (shown below).

The post spawned Time Travel: Is Invented meme format and prompted further use of the still image as a part of that trend on Reddit and Facebook in the following months.

Time Travel: Is Invented / Men With a Time Machine

Time Travel: Is Invented and Men With a Time Machine refer a series of Girls vs. Boys memes that humorously compare imaginary scenarios in which women and men get access to a time machine. The jokes commonly utilize Soyjaks vs. Chads and Running Arnold Schwarzenegger meme formats.