Waltuh

About

Waltuh refers to a series of memes parodying the Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul character Mike Ehrmantraut's particular manner of speaking and his catchphrases, mainly his way of pronouncing the name "Walter" as "Waltuh." Started on 4chan in 2018 and popularized in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul communities in the following years, the memes achieved mainstream recognition with the Put Your Dick Away, Walter subformat in August 2022.

Origin

In the Breaking Bad crime drama series and its spin-off Better Call Saul, the character Mike Ehrmantraut, a calm, calculating veteran turned criminal (portrayed by Jonathan Banks), has a particular manner of speech. For example, the character sometimes pronounces Walter White's name as "Waltuh" rather than "Walter" (example video shown below).

Starting in September 2018, on 4chan's /tv/ board, memes about the character gained prominence. The memes parodied several aspects of the character and the show in general, including the Mike Ehrmantraut getting more screentime and slow-paced scenes in Better Call Saul and the character looking older than in Breaking Bad. On September 4th, 2018, an anonymous user created a thread about Better Call Saul being boring, with a user making a post parodying Ehrmantraut's manner of saying the name "Walter" (shown below, left).^[1] Later that day, in another thread, a user made another post^[2] parodying Ehrmantraut's dialogue as if the character was senile (shown below, center). On September 7th, a user then reused the post for a separate /tv/^[3] thread about the character.

However, the earliest found dedicated "waltuh" thread^[4] in which Ehrmantraut's manner of speaking was parodied was created on June 19th, 2017 (shown below, right), and the phrase "waltuh" has also been used on /tv/ a few times since 2010.^[5][6]

Spread

In the following months after September 2018, posts making fun of Mike Ehrmantraut's dialogue, including his lines such as "no more half-measures" and "my guys are solid," gained virality on 4chan's /tv/^[7][8][9] board (examples shown below).

From 4chan, the format spread to other Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul communities, primarily to Reddit, where (starting in April 2022) it was combined with the Mikeposting and Kid Named Finger trends. For example, on April 24th, 2022, Redditor^[10] Ricen132 reposted a viral edit of Mike Ehrmantraut made to look like a finger, titling the post "mmm…waltuh…" The post received over 4,700 upvotes in four months.

On May 30th, 2022, an anonymous 4chan^[11] user reposted a photoshopped image of Mike Ehrmantraut holding Walter White from behind, writing a humorous erotic fanfiction for the characters (shown below). On May 31st, iFunny^[12] user PrototypeGuts posted a screenshot of the thread, with the post gaining over 4,200 smiles in two months.

The post later inspired the Put Your Dick Away, Walter meme format.

Parodied Dialogue

• Waltuh…
• My guys are solid.
• No more half-measures.
• Not my call.
• Is that so?
• Are we good?

Related Memes

Anime Memes Replaced With Breaking Bad / Mikeposting

Anime Memes Replaced With Breaking Bad refers to a series of memes that parody cringeworthy and unfunny anime memes by replacing one or several panels with images of characters from the television series Breaking Bad and its spin-off series Better Call Saul. Implementing elements from both ironic Breaking Bad Memes and Staring Animals memes, the format was popularized in late March 2022. The versions in which panels are replaced with Mike Ehrmantraut are known as Mikeposting, with Kid Named Finger being a subformat of that.

Kid Named Finger

Kid Named Finger is a parody meme format that combines elements of the ironic Breaking Bad trend Mikeposting with the Kid Named X meme format and involves referring to character Mike Ehrmantraut as "kid named finger" or "finger." The parody format gained initial popularity in the /r/okbuddychicanery subreddit in early April 2022 before spreading further in mid-May.

Put Your Dick Away, Walter

Put Your Dick Away, Walter or Put Your Dick Away, Waltuh is a viral audio clip where a voice actor playing Mike Ehrmentraut from Breaking Bad, also known in memes as Finger, tells Walter White to put his penis away and that he doesn't want to have sex with him. The audio clip, likely inspired by a May 2022 4chan post, was shared on Twitter by @BreakingBadIrny in June 2022 and went viral over the following weeks, particularly on YouTube and TikTok.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References