Wait, Is That Gabe?

Submission 3,127

Part of a series on Gabe Newell. [View Related Entries]

About

Wait, Is That Gabe? is a viral video of Valve President Gabe Newell in which a person off-screen doubts that the man is in fact Gabe Newell, with Newell then introducing himself. Combined with the Oh My God sound effect and edited in other ways, the video achieved virality as a meme format on YouTube in 2023.

Origin

On March 16th, 2023, video game publisher Valve posted a YouTube^[1] video celebrating the one-year anniversary of its Steam Deck gaming console. In one part of the video, hosted by Kaci Aitchison and Jay Shaw, Jay notices a digital window with Valve President Gabe Newell in it, commenting, "Wait, is that Gabe?" and Kaci replying, "Come on, not every dude with a beard …" as she's then cut off by Newell introducing himself.

- Wait, is that Gabe?
- Come on, not every dude with a beard-
- Hi! This is Gabe.
- Ooh.

On April 22nd, 2023, YouTube^[2] user cheese7695 posted a clip from the video in which the Oh My God! sound effect was edited in (authorship unconfirmed; shown below, left). The upload received over 15,000 views in seven months.

On June 6th, 2023, YouTube^[3] user Other K posted a recreated version of the meme in higher quality, with the clip garnering over 480,000 views in five months (shown below, right).

Spread

In the following months, the video received further spread through multiple reposts, primarily on YouTube. For example, on July 23rd and 22nd, 2023, YouTube^[4]^[5] users Azulk and Totally Not Liam Sullivan made reuploads that accrued over 159,000 views and 330,000 views in four months, respectively.

On July 30th, 2023, YouTube^[6] user Dark Star made the earliest found meme building upon the format, posting a Source Filmmaker (SFM) animation based on the clip that gained over 5,600 views in four months (shown below, left).

More memes and reanimations of the clip were posted in the following months. For example, on October 13th, artist Ncs Artist posted a fan-made animation that received over 264,000 views on YouTube^[7] and 595,000 views, 3,000 reposts and 25,000 likes on X^[8] / Twitter in one month (shown below, right).