Sam Elliott Image Macros / Then You're a Special Kind of Stupid

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Part of a series on Image Macros. [View Related Entries]

About

Sam Elliot Image Macros refer to images of actor Sam Elliott captioned with messages generally associated with Boomer ideology and Facebook memes. Though used online since as early as 2015, the images gained ironic recognition in 2022 in parody memes, with the format often utilizing the catchprase Then You're a Special Kind of Stupid.

Origin

Sam Pack Elliott is an American character actor known for his full mustache and sonorous voice, who started acting in the 1960s with appearances in Western films and often played charismatic and strong-willed characters though his career spanning over five decates.^[1] His appearance in the 1998 film The Big Lebowski as The Stranger, a mysterious bowling bar patron in a cowboy hat, who converses with the protagonist The Dude (played by Jeff Bridges) on several occasions throughout the film and ends with his reflection on the character.

One of the earliest found image macros using a still image of The Stranger was posted by Facebook^[2] community Conservatives Are Destroying Our Future (CADOF) on December 4th, 2015, and gained over 2,100 reactions and 2,000 shares in seven years (shown below).

Spread

Starting in late 2017, the Facebook and Instagram pages for The Free Thought Project started using images of Sam Elliott for image macro memes. For example, on October 5th, 2017, the page posted an image macro criticizing Big Media, with the post gaining over 7,900 likes on Instagram^[3] and being widely cirucalated in the following year (shown below, left). On January 4th, 2018, The Free Thought Project posted a four-panel meme that gained over 9,000 likes on Instagram^[4] (shown below, center). On February 22nd, 2018, Facebook^[5]^[6] page Hey Hold My Bear and Watch This posted an image macro about gun control that went viral on Facebook (shown below, right).

In Addition to Facebook and Instagram, multiple instances of political Sam Elliot image macros were posted on Imgflip.^[13]

In January 2019, gimmick Twitter^[7]^[8] page Cropped Boomer Images posted several cropped Sam Elliott image macros; for example, an image posted on January 17th, 2019, gained over 180 retweets and 1,300 likes in three years (shown below, left).

On January 15th, 2020, satirical news website Hard Drive^[9] published an article titled, "75% of Seniors Report Most Trusted Source of Information is Quotes Over Pictures of Sam Elliott," tweeting it on the same day. The tweet^[10] gained over 680 retweets and 4,300 likes in two years, with another tweet,^[11] made on March 21st, 2022, gaining over 150 retweets and 1,500 likes in one day (shown below).

On March 21st, 2022, voice actor Gianni Matragrano posted a voiced meme parodying political Sam Elliot image macros which gained over 53,000 views on YouTube^[12] and 22,700 views on Twitter^[14] in two days (shown below).