Sounds Good, Doesn't Work

Submission 48,974

Part of a series on Donald Trump. [View Related Entries]

About

Sounds Good, Doesn't Work refers to a series of image macros and reaction images of United States President Donald Trump saying "sounds good, doesn't work" in regards to whatever the image is captioned by. Typically, these are things that the meme's author disagrees with or simple jokes.

Origin

On September 26th, 2016, during the first presidential debate, then-Republican Presidential Nominee Trump said in regards to Secretary Hillary Clinton, "Typical politician. All talk, no action. Sounds good, doesn't work. Never going to happen. Our country is suffering because people like Secretary Clinton have made such bad decisions in terms of our jobs and in terms of what's going on."^[1]^[10]^[11]

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That night, a gif of the moment was published on the website GIPHY in their Election 2016 category. ^[2] The gif (shown below) has been viewed more than 4.5 million times.

In May 2017, the image gained steam on conservative Instagram meme accounts. May 15th, 2017, Instagram^[8] user @dylansdailyshow posted the image, not the gif, of Trump saying "Sounds good, doesn't work" under the caption "Respecting Woman," referencing the sexist belief that showing women respect is not possible (shown blow, left). Two days later, on May 17th, the Instagram^[9] account @conservativemovement captioned the image "Socialism," implying that the core tenants of a socialist economy were not practical, despite their positive promise. The post (shown below, right) received more than 3,400 likes in five months.

On June 26th, 2017, an anonymous 9GAG ^[5] user posted a picture of a pistol equipped with a silencer above the photo of Trump. However, the subtitle was rearranged to read "works good, doesn't Sound." The post (shown below) received more than 20,000 points and 200 comments in four months.

On August 7th, Instagram ^[6] user @basicbitchfoundation shared "Twitter"/memes/sites/twitter ^[7] user @champagndiesel's image macro of the Trump image underneath the caption "Them: 'You probably wouldn't hate Monday's so much if you didn't day drink and black out every Sunday.'" On Instagram, the post received more than 8,000 likes in two months.

In October 2017, the meme became popular on the /r/dankmemes "subreddit"":/memes/sites/reddit On October 14th, 2017, Redditor^[3] IPeelCrayons posted the image with the caption "When you finish reading the communist manifesto" on the /r/dankmemes subreddit. The post (shown below, left) received more than 17,000 points (84% upvoted) and 950 comments in five days.

That day, Redditor^[4] iGalaxy_ posted the image with the caption "When you jerking off and you get so horny you tell yourself; 'Man, I am definitely gonna go a another round after this one!'" The post (shown below, right) received more than 28,700 points (91% upvoted) and 342 comments.