The Third Impact

About

The Third Impact refers to the plot point and end of the world within the anime franchise Neon Genesis Evangelion. Often talked about within the series, it is the end goal of the antagonists within the universe and is seen in two different adaptations. Memes about The Third Impact online take on the form of either talking about preventing it, reacting to it and showing different scenes from within The Third Impact in The End Of Evangelion.

Origin

Within the world of Neon Genesis Evangelion, there have been two "impacts" already, with each causing a world-ending type disaster, and the goal of the series from the onset is to prevent the third and final impact. Memes about the Third Impact, including starting it, have been around as long as the series has been present online — but the first exact meme referencing it is unknown.

One early recorded example of a meme, however, was posted to Tumblr on April 2nd, 2014, by Tumblr user shydad420,^[1] who posted a variation of Stu Making Chocolate Pudding At 4 AM to make it about Shinji causing The Third Impact because he lost control (shown below).

Spread

Along with memes about starting The Third Impact, others began to make memes about characters who react after the end of it. This is often shown by having the character photoshopped into the final scene on the beach, with the red sky behind them, giving some sort of dialogue in character. On February 27th, 2018, X user @HolEntireHorse^[2] posted an image of Drake and Josh mocking the scene in which they run over Oprah by making it about them arguing over The Third Impact (shown below).

Due to the sky shifting to a red light during The Third Impact, it became a prominent meme online to show a red sky while talking about the event starting.

On January 9th, 2022, an example was made using the Kramer, What's Going On In There? meme format in a Facebook post by the page Rei is Bae,^[3] which also pokes fun at the complicated lore of the series by having Kramer respond that he doesn't understand what's going on (shown below). The post received over 770 likes and 400 shares in two years.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References