Salim Shady

Submission 4,648

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About

Salim Shady refers to memes about "Pakistani Eminem" or "Muslim Eminem," where the rapper is photoshopped to look like his name could be Salim. The name "Salim Shady" is a play on Eminem's musical alter-ego "Slim Shady." The memes first originated on Facebook before entering popular slang in Indian and Pakistani internet circles.

Origin

The origins of the pun "Salim Shady" are unclear, with the earliest surviving post of a meme using the pun coming from a now-deleted Redditor^[1] complaining about the meme utilizing a trite joke on March 24th, 2017. The post gathered over 100 upvotes in five years (seen below). They were reposted to Facebook^[2] and Instagram^[3] on March 25th.

Spread

Other versions of the joke began to pop up on iFunny in consecutive years and grew popular via reposts to other platforms.

The earliest known variation of the meme was posted on 15 August 2019 by iFunny^[4] user LoveForAmerica, where it gathered over 20 smiles in three years (seen below).

A later iteration of the meme was posted on September 26th, 2019 by a deleted Reddit^[5] account to the subreddit /r/OkBuddyRetard. The Salim Shady meme featured other puns like "Kenya Middle East" for Kanye West, "Playboi Cairo" for Playboi Carti, and "Ibo Eshak" for Drake. The post gathered over 600 upvotes in three years (seen below).

On October 24th, 2019, Redditor^[7] HalalMeatCOEggo posted a meme about Egyptian Eminem, alongside a caption that read, "rap god egypt حمل مجانا salim shadi rap hd لا فيروس 😂😂 downlod halal." The post gathered over 1,000 upvotes in nearly three years (seen below).

A variation of the meme was posted to iFunny by iFunny^[6] user Conchi on December 19th, 2019, where it gathered 20 smiles in three years. The post appears to be a repost from a past iteration of the Instagram page @pakistan.facts.genius.

On September 2nd, 2021, Redditor^[8] tilak_raj posted a meme video about Salim Shady, with a speech from an Imam dubbed over with the instrumental from Eminem's song "Lose Yourself." The post gathered over 11,000 upvotes in nearly a year (seen below).