What If We Used 100 Percent of the Brain?

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About

"What If We Used 100 Percent of the Brain?" is a memorable line from the 2014 sci-fi action film Lucy. In 2018, a two-panel image macro based on the scene gained popularity among Spanish-speaking users as a way to comment on both intelligent and unintelligent human behavior. In January 2019, the macro reached mainstream popularity on Reddit.

Origin

On July 25th, 2014, sci-fi action film Lucy ^[1] premiered in theaters in the United States. In one scene^[2], professor Samuel Norman (played by Morgan Freeman) is asked by an audience member about the hypothetical possibility to use one hundred percent of human's brain.

Spread

In December 2018, the macro based on the scene gained popularity in a number of Spanish meme pages on Facebook and Instagram, including Momos Corp^[3], Memes Ultra Random^[4], Dilo con Momos^[5], Chompos^[6] and other communities (examples below). While it is unclear where exactly the template was used first, the earliest examples of the meme can be tracked to at least December 18th, 2018^[7].

On December 21st, 2018, Mexican satirical outlet El Deforma^[8] posted a compilation of the "100% of the Brain" memes. On the same day, Redditor^[9] EliPunk_ submitted an untranslated Spanish meme to /r/PewdiepieSubmissions subreddits, where it gained five upvotes.

On January 11th, 2019, Memedroid user Fancyboy uploaded two first known English versions of the meme to the website^[10]^[11] (shown below, left and center). The posts gained over 1000 and over 800 points in three weeks. On the same day, Memedroid^[12] user 0v3rlord uploaded another English meme mased on the macro, which gained 1400 points in the same period (shown below, right).

On the same day, Redditor^[13] CansOS reposted the 0v3rlord's image to /r/PewdiepieSubmissions subreddit, where it gained 18 upvotes in three weeks. The format gained mainstream popularity on the platform after on January 12th, 2019, Redditor^[14] nixonico reposted the image tp /r/MemeEconomy subreddit. The repost received over 13,600 upvotes in three weeks.

Following the post by nixonico, more versions of the meme were posted to /r/dankmemes, /r/memes and other subreddits.