There Are Federal Agents Outside My House

Confirmed 54,092

Part of a series on Robert Downey Jr.'s Comments. [View Related Entries]

About

There Are Federal Agents Outside My House, also known as There Are Black People Outside My House, refers to a series of snowclone image macro memes based on a viral version of Robert Downey Jr.'s Comments meme. In the memes and redraws, Robert Downey Jr. or another character announces a certain menacing presence outside their place of residence or work, with the memes relying primarily on referencing various media. Originating from a viral post in /r/ComedyNecrophilia and gaining popularity on iFunny in late 2019, the format found mainstream popularity in early 2021.

Origin

On March 9th, 2019, Redditor __Disfunctional__ posted an ironic meme based on a four-panel format originally posted by the Harry Potter Instagram fan page harrypotter_80. The last panel of the original meme was replaced with a non-sequitur Robert Downey Jr.'s Comment reading, "there are black people outside my house." The post received over 4,500 upvotes in the /r/ComedyNecrophilia^[1] subreddit in six months (original meme, ironic meme and image macro shown below).

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On March 20th, 2019, iFunny^[2] user ProximaMidnight reposted the cropped fourth panel, with the post gaining over 80 smiles in two years. On June 21st, 2019, Redditor^[3] _Asbestos_ used the macro in a meme about the 1967 Detroit riot, with their post gaining 11 upvotes in /r/HistoryMemes.

The macro did not see use as a meme format until the August 7th, 2019, FBI raid on the home of 18-year-old iFunnier Justin "ArmyofChrist" Olsen, during which guns were seized. In the following days, multiple memes about the raid were posted by users on iFunny, with the iFunny app taking a number of steps to downplay the presence of radicalized users.

Prior to August 15th, 2019, an unknown iFunny user posted an edited version of the macro, with the caption altered to "there are federal agents outside my house," which referenced the raid (shown below). On August 20th, iFunny^[4] user Grandson reposted the meme, gaining nearly 100 smiles in two years.

On August 15th, an unknown Redditor^[5] posted an ironic meme that used the caption, gaining over 180 upvotes in /r/okbuddyretard (shown below, left). On September 3rd, Redditor^[6] poopip000 posted a Squidward's Suicide macro captioned with the phrase (shown below, center), with their post gaining over 2,600 upvotes in six months. On September 12th, 2019, iFunny^[7] user Grandson used the macro as a part of a two-panel meme, with the post gaining over 170 smiles (shown below, right).

The macro did not see further use as a format until early October 2019 when it started being used as a snowclone meme on iFunny. On October 3rd, iFunny^[8]^[9] user Bodark posted two versions of the meme, with one captioned "There are ATF Agents outside my house" gaining over 130 smiles in two years (shown below, left). On October 5th, iFunny^[10] user Iliad posted a meme that referenced Call of Duty: Zombies, which received over 900 smiles in two years (shown below, center). On October 22nd, 2019, iFunny^[11] user BoomerThor posted a meme that referenced doxxing of a person involved in the Younger family controversy, which received over 5,000 smiles in the same period (shown below, right).

Through 2020, the format saw maintained a presence on iFunny,^[12]^[13] with the "federal agents" macro seeing use as a reaction image on Twitter.^[14]

On January 10th, 2021, Redditor^[15] Giono_OOf_01 posted a JoJo's Bizarre Adventure meme based on the snowclone that received over 15,200 upvotes in /r/ShitPostCrusaders in four months (shown below, left). On February 12th, Twitter^[16] user @TheF1ameThr0wer posted the earliest found redraw of the meme, with the post gaining over 1,900 retweets and 10,700 likes in three months (shown below, right).

Starting in February 2021, the format gained a larger presence on Twitter, particularly in redraws.