What Are You Gonna Do, Stab Me?

About

What Are You Gonna Do, Stab Me? or Quote From Man Stabbed refers to a screenshot of a newscast by station KHQ about a man who got stabbed, showing a quote from the victim spoken right before the stabbing, saying, "what are you gonna do, stab me?" The image first started circulating online in mid-2012 and is paired with reaction images that highlight the quote's absurdity. The image's exact origin was unknown until a 2020 BNet story was published where the author reached out to a KHQ reporter, who offered a transcript of the report. The video of the news report has not been recovered.

Origin

On June 17th, 2012, an Imgur^[2] user posted a screenshot from a KHQ newscast offering a "quote from man stabbed," the quote reading, "what are you gonna do, stab me?" gaining over 551,000 views and 1,200 upvotes in nine years (shown below).

According to a 2020 BNet^[1] blog post exploring the image's origins, websites including Cracked^[3] have speculated that the image is in relation to a July 2012 stabbing in East Spokane that KHQ^[4] reported on, although this is incorrect. The author reached out to Cory Howard, the reporter who wrote the story, who confirmed that this was not where the image came from. Howard wrote: "From what I can gather, the stabbing actually happened on September 23, 2011, in west Spokane, though it doesn't appear we have any archived articles on it." He then offered the author two transcripts from the original news report revealing the date of the stabbing, location, and names of those involved (shown below, left and right). The video of the report has not been recovered.

Spread

One of the earliest memes to use the image is an image macro posted to Meme Center^[5] in 2012. The image received viral spread through reposts. For example, on July 23rd, 2014, Instagram^[8] page f--kjerry posted the image, gaining over 18,200 likes in eight years.

On November 9th, 2018, Redditor Shynai posted a version of the meme using Surprised Pikachu as a reaction to /r/memes,^[6] gaining over 2,500 upvotes in three years (shown below, left). On November 19th, Redditor xX_macksjuicebox_Xx posted a meme to /r/HistoryMemes^[7] likening the image to the story of Julius Caesar, gaining over 2,100 upvotes in a similar span of time (shown below, right).

On December 17th, 2020, Instagram^[9] user memelord posted a Yes Chad meme using the image, gaining over 49,000 likes in just over a year (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References