Thufir Hawat Calculating

About

Thufir Hawat Calculating refers to a series of image caption memes using a reaction image of the character Thufir Hawat, portrayed by Stephen McKinley, from the 2021 film Dune performing an extremely difficult calculation in his mind. Starting in early November 2021, a meme format in which Thufir attempts to remember various things gained virality on Twitter.

Origin

On October 22nd, 2021, the epic science fiction film Dune, based on Frank Herbert's novel of the same name, premiered in the United States.^[1] In the film, the Mentat character Thufir Hawat (Stephen McKinley) is able to quickly perform computer-level calculations in his mind, with Hawat's eyes turning white as he calculates (scene shown below).

- How much will it cost them? Travelling all this way for this formality?
- Three guild navigators, a total of 1.46 million 62 solaris round trip.

Spread

On October 24th, 2021, Facebook^[2] user Uusama Buu posted the earliest found meme based on the scene, a 9 + 10 = 21 meme that gained over 180 reactions and 20 shares in the Denis Villeneuve Merdeposting Facebook group (shown below, left). On October 24th, 2021, Uusama Buu posted^[3] another meme based on the scene that gained over 500 reactions and 100 shares and was circulated online through reposts in the following days (shown below, center). On October 27th, 2021, Twitter^[4] account @filmdaze posted the earliest found image caption meme based on the frame of Thufir Hawat calculating, with the post gaining over 100 retweets and 1,300 likes in six months (shown below, right).

On October 28th, Redditor^[5] NinteteenEighty9 posted a three-panel history meme based on the scene that received over 17,300 upvotes in six months in the /r/HistoryMemes subreddit.

On November 5th, Twitter^[6] user @lukeisamazing posted the earliest viral image caption meme on the platform, a joke about libertarians that gained over 2,600 retweets and 46,600 likes in five months (shown below).

In the following days, the meme format achieved virality on Twitter as users humorously captioned the image. For example, on November 7th, 2021, Twitter^[7] user @slims_return posted a meme that gained over 2,400 retweets and 16,200 likes (shown below, left). A tweet^[8] made by user @bubbalicious47 on November 8th, 2021, gained over 930 retweets and 12,800 likes in five months (shown below, right).

The format maintained significant prevalence on Twitter through November 2021, with more examples being posted online in December 2021 and early 2022.

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References