About

The Trees Speak in Vietnamese is a catchphrase referring to how in the Vietnam War, Americans struggled with the guerilla warfare of the Viet Cong who would often fight in dense jungle, leading to the anxious phrase "The trees speak in Vietnamese." In late 2018, it became a catchphrase in memes about the Vietnam War.

Origin

The phrase refers to a tactic used by Vietnamese soldiers in the Vietnam War wherein they would use the dense forests of Vietnam to their advantage, perhaps by tying themselves to high tree branches to ambush American soldiers.^[1] The phrase was referenced in comments sections of War Flashback Parodies. An early iteration of the meme featured Mrs. Puff from Spongebob Squarepants saying "Oh, Neptune." It appeared on Imgur on May 13th, 2016 (shown below).

Spread

The specific phrase "The trees speak in Vietnamese" did not become used in memes until several years later. On December 11th, 2018, the same image of Mrs. Puff was posted to /r/historymemes with the phrase in the caption, gaining over 29,000 points (shown below, left). This led to a surge of such jokes on Reddit. A post on /r/dankmemes from the same day gained over 16,000 points (shown below, right).

The trend also saw many variations in the I Am the Lorax and I Speak for the Trees meme. Posts include two edits that appeared in /r/historymemes (shown below). The meme was inquired about in /r/Teenagers^[1] on December 15th, 2018.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable

External References