Wii Remote Wrist Strap

About

Wii Remote Wrist Strap refers to the strap attached to game controllers for the Nintendo Wii intended to prevent players from accidentally releasing and potentially throwing the controller. Years after the console's release, jokes about the dangers of playing the Wii without the wrist strap began appearing on Reddit.

Origin

The Nintendo Wii was released on November 19th, 2006.^[1] The console came with motion controllers which in certain games, such as Wii Sports, would require a player to move the controller as one would an object like a tennis racket or baseball bat. Because of the danger of accidentally throwing the remote, the Wii came with wrist straps one could attach to the controller and place around their wrist to prevent the controller from being thrown and accidentally causing household damage.

Jokes about the Wii Remote Wrist Strap appeared in early image macros. For example, an Insanity Wolf joke about the Wii Remote has appeared on Meme Generator. Though the post is undated, it references Just Dance, a video game which came out in 2009, suggesting it may have been posted around that time.

Spread

In 2015, after Katy Perry's performance at that year's Super Bowl, several internet users noticed the wrist strap attached to her microphone resembled the Wii Remote wrist strap. A thread about the similarity posted to /r/wiiu on February 2nd, 2015,^[2] gained over 6,200 points (shown below).

On April 17th, 2015, Smash Boards forum^[3] user skylanders fan posted a Super Smash Bros. 4 Character Announcement Parody with the figure demonstrating poor use of the Wii Remote (shown below).

In January of 2018, jokes about the Wii Remote wrist strap began appearing on Reddit. It appears they got their start in Star Wars meme subreddits. A popular variation of the meme posted to /r/prequelmemes^[4] on January 17th, 2018 gained over 6,900 upvotes (shown below, left). On January 22nd, 2018, a Wii Remote joke was posted to /r/sequelmemes^[5] and gained over 15,000 upvotes. The format also grew popular on /r/dankmemes. On January 22nd, 2018, an inquiry about the uptick in Wii Remote jokes was posted to /r/OutOfTheLoop.^[6]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References