About

Vault Boy "Hold Up" is a series of reaction image macros of a black and white image of the character Vault Boy from the video game Fallout with his arms extended. The image features the caption "hold up" to express a desire for someone to stop what they are saying, similar to Excuse Me What The Fuck

Origin

The earliest known usage of the image was posted on the /co/ 4chan ^[1] message board by an anonymous user on September 7th, 2017 (shown below). They wrote, in regards to an earlier photograph in the thread, "I didn't even see the elephant until other people started mentioning it. The fuck."

Spread

On July 28th, 2018, the image was posted on Reddit by Redditor genesis01109 (shown below, left).^[2]

Several months later, on September 17th, Redditor Mciscool200 posted the image in the /r/MemeEconomy subreddit,^[3] where it received more than 980 points (97% upvoted) and 180 comments in less than one year (shown below, center). They captioned the image, "When you always make jokes about wanting to die but someone actually pulls out a gun."

Throughout the year, the image continued to be used as a reaction image to other people's comments (example below, right).

Various Examples

External References