Welcome Home Cheater

Submission 21,249

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

About

Welcome Home Cheater is a photograph of a homemade banner that reads "welcome home cheater" hung up on the front of a house. The photo was uploaded to Reddit in 2013 and gained viral spread over the following years as an exploitable image macro meme format. Purportedly, the banner was hung up by the wife of a soldier who cheated on her, although this claim is unconfirmed.

Origin

On June 6th, 2013, a now-deleted Redditor posted a photograph to /r/pics^[1] showing a banner hanging across the front of a house with the words "WELCOME HOME CHEATER" spray painted on it, writing, "Taken this morning in my hometown in Washington. Ohhh shit" (shown below). The post gained over 2,900 upvotes in nine years. According to the poster, the image was shown to him by a barista who sent him the image.

On June 9th, the Daily Mail^[2] reported on the photo, speculating it was taken in the town of Bremerton near Seattle. The town is near a military hospital and a Navy shipyard and soldiers had been returning home from active duty around the time the photo was taken. They speculate that the banner may have been hung by the wife of a returning soldier who she suspects was cheating, although this is unconfirmed.

Spread

The image gained viral spread over the following years. For example, it was added to eBaum's World's^[3] list of "24 Cases of Revenge on Cheaters" list on May 26th, 2015, garnering over 79,000 views in seven years. People began using the image as an exploitable as early as 2016. One of the earliest examples is an image macro posted by Facebook^[4] page My Little Minionѕ on April 22nd, 2016, garnering over 1,000 reactions and 240 shares in six years (shown below).

On January 7th, 2019, Twitter^[5] user @shav457 posted the original image, writing, "I knew twitter was a different place when I seen a nigga say he’d run through the banner like it was a home game 😂😭😂" garnering over 52,000 likes and 19,000 retweets in three years (shown below, left). On May 18th, Twitter^[6] user @romasjuliet posted a meme referencing Brooklyn Nine-Nine themed using the image, garnering over 4,600 likes in three years (shown below, right). On August 5th, 2020, it was reposted by Instagram^[7] user b99precinct, garnering over 7,100 likes in two years.

On January 31st, 2021, Instagram^[8] user bakuseme.yeah posted a photoshopped version of the image referencing My Hero Academia, garnering over 81,000 likes in a year (shown below).

On September 9th, Redditor kamote_kun posted a Genshin Impact meme to /r/Genshin_Memepact^[9] using the image, garnering over 12,300 upvotes in a year (shown below, left). It was reposted by Instagram^[10] user genshin_impact_world on September 10th, garnering over 12,000 likes. On October 29th, Redditor BlckBrd17 posted another Genshin Impact meme referencing the image to /r/Genshin_Impact,^[11] garnering over 17,600 upvotes in 10 months (shown below, right).

On August 28th, 2022, Twitter^[12] user @gayymomgod posted a Splatoon meme referencing the image, writing, "splatoon 2 once the splatoon 3 splatfest demo ended," garnering over 75,000 likes and 6,600 retweets in a day (shown below).