Socially Awesome Penguin

Confirmed 140,018

For more information, head to KYM Database: Socially Awkward Penguin.

About

Socially Awesome Penguin is an advice animal image macro series featuring a photo of a penguin with a red color wheel background. As the antithesis of Socially Awkward Penguin, the captions depict the character as popular, charismatic and sexually attractive.

Origin

The original photo comes from a horizontally flipped version of the Adélie penguin used in the Socially Awkward Penguin series (shown left), which first appeared on Tumblr in August of 2009. On January 13th, 2010, the "Fuck Yeah Socially Awesome Penguin"^[6] Tumblr blog was created, with the first image macro featuring the caption "Say a word wrong / create hilarious inside joke"^[8] (shown right).

The first image macros were watermarked by Meme Generator^[2], but the exact date of creation is currently unknown.

On September 13th, 2012, novelist Andy Weir claimed responsibility for the meme in a Reddit AMA. ^[14] One user asked, "what is something secret about you that Reddit doesn't know?" Weird responded:

Nothing major, but some fun trivia about my life:

I am a computer programmer and I worked for Blizzard on Warcraft II (yes I'm that old).

Though I will never be able to prove it, I invented the "Socially Awesome Penguin" image macro meme (as a response to "Socially Awkward Penguin" which was popular at the time).

I also created two webcomics, Casey and Andy and Cheshire Crossing. Not exactly a secret, but nobody seems to know that.

Spread

On April 8th, 2010, a Socially Awesome Penguin image macro with the caption "Crush walks up to you in hall / have a quick chat. You're meeting her after school" was submitted to a Socially Awkward penguin thread on 4chan's /b/ (random) board.

On August 15th, a second "Socially Awesome Penguin" Tumblr^[1] was created. On January 3rd, 2011, a post with several Socially Awesome Penguin derivatives was submitted to the /r/AdviceAnimals^[9] subreddit by Redditor Mano21, receiving 1,210 up votes prior to being archived. A Socially Awesome Penguin Quickmeme^[3] page was created the same month. On March 1st, 2012, the Internet humor blog Smosh^[10] published a round-up of notable Socially Awesome Penguin derivatives from Tumblr and Reddit. On April 7th, a video featuring two young boys interacting with an aquarium penguin titled "Logan Meets Socially Awesome Penguin" was uploaded to YouTube by user TXBeer.

As of April 16th, 2012, the Quickmeme page has received over 3,500 submissions and a Facebook^[5] page for "Socially Awesome Penguin" has accumulated over 990 likes.

Notable Examples

The meme has continued to spread on sites like FunnyJunk^[12], Tumblr^[11] and /r/AdviceAnimals^[13] subreddit.

Reverse Memes

Some Socially Awesome Penguin macros were created as direct reversals of Socially Awkward Penguin derivatives. For example, the image below shows an examples of Socially Awkward Penguin, a Socially Average Penguin and a Socially Awesome Penguin derivatives for the same social situation.

Hybrid

Socially Awesome Penguin often appears in image macros with its antithesis Socially Awkward Penguin. On May 12th, 2011, a "Socially Awesome Awkward Penguin" Quickmeme^[14] page was created, featuring macros with half of the image portraying a successful social interaction and the other half describing a socially awkward interaction. As of April 16th, 2012, the Quickmeme page has received over 8,200 submissions.