Visualizing In the Mirror the Man I Want to Become

Submission 10,641

Part of a series on Exploitables. [View Related Entries]

About

Visualizing In the Mirror the Man I Want to Become is an exploitable image macro of a man staring at his reflection in the mirror with his hands behind his back, captioned, "Visualising in the mirror the man I want to become." The image comes from the album cover for the Spider-Man rock and roll concept album Spider-Man: Rock Reflections of a Superhero and became the subject of memes starting in May 2023 in which the image in the mirror is photoshopped to replace Spider-Man with another character.

Origin

On March 17th, 1975, the rock concept album Spider-Man: Rock Reflections of a Superhero, an album that features songs about the Spider-Man universe, was released.^[1] The album artwork features a depiction of Peter Parker looking into the mirror to see Spider-Man (shown below).

On May 3rd, 2023, Facebook^[2] page Refined Claymore +10 posted a Bloodborne meme photoshopping the album cover, garnering over 960 shares and 3,500 reactions in a month (shown below). This is the earliest known use of the album artwork as a meme.

Spread

The meme spread over the following weeks, becoming notably popular throughout June 2023. On May 4th, 2023, Instagram^[3] user ilcirox posted a version with Shrek in the mirror, garnering over 600 likes in a month. On May 6th, a Redditor posted a version to /r/DevilMayCry,^[4] garnering over 1,500 upvotes in a month (shown below, left). On May 9th, the Facebook^[5] page A Lonely Guy With Good Taste In Pretty Much Everything posted a version of the meme featuring Musashi Miyamoto from Vagabond, garnering over 7,900 shares and 24,000 reactions in a month (shown below, right).

On May 13th, the Filipino My Swag Dealer Facebook^[6] page posted a version featuring influencer Romeo Gulla, garnering over 9,300 shares and 25,000 reactions in a month. On the same day, the Facebook^[7] page You already know wtf is going on shared a version of the meme with pimp Peter Griffin in the mirror, garnering over 5,100 shares and 6,300 reactions in a month (shown below).

On May 26th, the Facebook^[8] page Hey It's Me Goku posted a Dragon Ball version of the meme that gained over 7,200 shares and 17,000 reactions in a month (shown below, left). On June 18th, Instagram^[9] user epicjoko posted a version of the meme featuring Shadow the Hedgehog in the mirror, garnering over 119,000 likes in 10 days (shown below).