Sad Affleck

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Part of a series on Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. [View Related Entries]

About

Sad Affleck (not to be confused with Bored Affleck) refers to the look of dismay worn by actor Ben Affleck, who portrays Batman in the 2016 DC Comics superhero film Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, during a Yahoo! UK interview in response to a question concerning its lukewarm reception from the critics. Upon its release in March 2016, the video clip of Affleck somberly listening to the interviewer's description of the critics' reviews quickly went viral on YouTube, prompting the creation of parodies and remixes using sad music and imagery.

Origin

On March 24th 2016, Yahoo! News published an article as well as a video interview with the cast and crew of the newly-released 2016 DC Comics blockbuster film Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, including director Zack Snyder and the lead actors Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill.^[1] In the segment with Affleck and Cavill, the interviewer asked them how they feel about the mixed to negative reviews from critics the film has received so far. Cavill then took the lead in answering the question while Affleck remained in silence with a noticeably sad look on his face (shown below)

That same day, YouTuber Sabconth created a parody of the interview clip featuring a collage of headlines from review articles, indicating the negative reception of the movie, set to the intro from Simon and Garfunkel's folk-rock song "The Sound of Silence" (mirror below). The video gained more than a million views within the first 48 hours.

Spread

Shortly after YouTuber Sabconth's video went viral, it was submitted to various subreddits on Reddit^[4], including /r/batman, /r/NamFlashbacks, /r/sadcringe, /r/photoshopbattles and /r/funny, while additional parodies combining the interview footage of Ben Affleck with other moody and bittersweet songs followed suit, including remixes of Imogen Heap's "Hide and Seek", the outro song from Curb Your Enthusiasm and Joy Division's "Atmosphere." Throughout the day, the "Sad Affleck" meme was reported on by various entertainment and social media news outlets, including NBC Today^[11], Elle^[7], The Daily Dot^[6], Uproxx^[8], The Escapist^[13], Huffington Post^[9], Gothamist^[5], Vulture^[10] and Mediate^[12], among many others.

2016 Billboard Hot Rock Songs

In April, "The Sound of Silence" reached the No. 6 position on Billboard’s Hot Rock Songs chart. On April 6th, Billboard^[14] published an article revealing that the song’s resurgence in popularity was influenced by the Sad Affleck video. Additionally, Billboard reported that the song had reached the No. 2 position on the Rock Streaming Songs chart, with upwards of 5.6 million streams up 582 percent.

Bored Ben Affleck

Bored Ben Affleck is a reaction image and GIF of American actor Ben Affleck during his attendance at the 65th annual Grammy Awards ceremony on February 5th, 2023. The video of the actor's bored facial expressions, captured by cameras while he was sitting next to his wife Jennifer Lopez, rapidly went viral on social media after the 2023 Grammys, generating a series of GIF caption memes and mocking tweets in the following days similar to earlier memes like Sad Affleck.