About

The Unemployed Friend at 2pm On a Monday, among other variations changing the time or day, is a catchphrase used in a series of image caption memes depicting the unemployed friend having an adventure in the middle of a weekday since they don't have a job. The original meme was posted to Twitter in September 2022 and uses a Lord Of The Rings image of Gandalf to represent the unemployed friend, inspiring new variations (especially on Twitter and TikTok) over the following weeks.

Origin

On September 21st, 2022, Twitter^[1] user @alexsmokesmid posted a piece of artwork depicting Gandalf from Lord Of the Rings wandering through the woods, captioned, "the unemployed friend at 2pm on a Monday," garnering over 1,600 likes and 220 retweets in two weeks (shown below). It was screenshotted and reposted by Instagram^[2] users midi.um on September 22nd, garnering over 9,800 likes in two weeks. On September 23rd, Twitter^[3] user @alexsmokesmid then posted another variation on the meme, writing, "the unemployed friend at 1:40 pm staring at the apex legends lobby" over another piece of Gandalf artwork, garnering over 2,500 likes and 200 retweets in two weeks.

Spread

On September 25th, 2022, Instagram^[4] user obsessedwithcatboys reposted the original meme, garnering over 21,000 likes in two weeks. On September 28th, TikToker^[5] @benjaminsburn posted a video using a similar caption over Red Dead Redemption 2 footage, garnering over 1.7 million views in a week (shown below). On the same day, Instagram^[6] user moistbuddha reposted @alexsmokesmid's original version of the meme, garnering over 141,000 likes in a week. That day, it was also posted to Tumblr^[8] by evildilf2, garnering over 24,000 notes in a week. On September 30th, TikToker^[7] @danicooldragon00 posted a video using the phrase, garnering over 245,000 views in five days (shown below, right).

On October 4th, Twitter^[9] user @charleyonhere posted, "The unemployed friend at 3:00 pm on a Monday" over an image of Tom Cruise sitting on top of the Burj Khalifa, garnering over 218,000 likes and 15,000 retweets in a day (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References