Stepping vs. Jumping On A Rake

Submission 19,492

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

About

Stepping vs. Jumping On A Rake refers to a diagonal two-panel image macro series showing a stock image render of a person stepping on a rake and having it smack them in the face on top, and an image of a man doing a skateboard trick with a rake below, also landing on it. The format became mildly popularized across social media throughout 2020.

Origin

On July 9th, 2018, Redditor u/scaleable posted an image macro to /r/ProgrammerHumor^[1] consisting of two images of people getting hit in the face with rakes (shown below). The top image consists of two stock image renders^[2]^[3] of a featureless person stepping on a rake. The bottom image is a webcomic posted to Instagram^[4] by artist gudim_public on April 26th, 2018, of a person performing a skateboard trick down a set of stairs with a rake instead of a skateboard, ultimately stepping on it. The Reddit post gained over 31,600 upvotes in roughly two years.

The meme quickly inspired new variations. For example, two days later on July 11th, Redditor u/ziggestorm99 posted a photoshopped version of the image to /r/memes,^[5] replacing the top text with "The US in Vietnam" and the bottom text with "The US in Afghanistan," garnering over 5,000 upvotes in two years (shown below). On the same day, a template was then uploaded to Imgur.^[8]

Spread

Prior to July 13th, now-suspended Twitter^[6] user @InnerPartisan posted a version of the meme replacing the text with "capitalism" and "anarcho-capitalism," joking that both are equal failures (shown below). The image was then reuploaded to Know Your Meme^[7] on July 13th, garnering over 5,000 views in two years. On the same date, three different versions of the meme were uploaded to /r/MemeEconomy,^[9]^[10]^[11] showing interest in the format.

On August 22nd, Redditor u/smoothCriminal23 posted a version of the meme to /r/2meirl4meirl^[12] and Imgur^[13] about depression, garnering over 33,000 upvotes on the former and 437,000 views on the latter in three years (shown below, left). On May 25th, 2019, Redditor u/Ti89Titanium04 uploaded a new version of the format to /r/me_irl,^[15] garnering over 11,300 upvotes in two years and becoming one of the most reposted versions of the meme (shown below, right).

On December 26th, 2020, u/Dankmemeexplorer posted a version to /r/EngineeringStudents,^[14] garnering over 11,000 upvotes in three months (shown below).