Touch the Ant

Confirmed 52,685

About

Touch the Ant is an image featuring a cropped picture of an ant with the caption "touch the ant," which reveals a hidden picture of a dead ant with the caption "Gently dumbass! U killed it!" upon opening the image on Facebook. Following the posting of the image in mid May 2017, other variations mimicking the ant picture began circulating online.

Origin

On May 9th, 2017, the Laugh or Croak Too Facebook^[1] page posted the ant image, which gathered upwards of 342,000 shares, 32,000 reactions and 15,900 comments over then next 72 hours.

Spread

On May 10th, the Sarcasm Facebook^[3] page reposted the ant image, which gained over 324,000 reactions, 144,000 shares and 39,000 comments over the next 48 hours. That day, YouTuber Mr. NoBody posted a video of himself touching the ant picture on his Facebook feed, before growing upset that nothing happens (shown below).

That day, Imgur user Twister1985 reposted the ant image.^[2] Meanwhile, a picture of Lieutenant Dan from the 1994 drama film Forrest Gump was submitted to the /r/terriblefacebookmemes^[4] subreddit (shown below, left).

On May 11th, the Jo de la Jojo Facebook page posted a parody of the image, which prompted viwers to tap on Noriaki Kakyoin from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, revealing a picture of a donut photoshopped on to Kakyoin's death image with the caption "Gently dumbass! You donuted him!" (shown below).