Willem Dafoe Doing Splits

Submission 4,655

Part of a series on Willem Dafoe. [View Related Entries]

About

Willem Dafoe Doing Splits refers to two viral photographs of actor Willem Dafoe doing splits, both of which saw use as caption memes on social media. Made in 2012 and 2019, the photographs have been used in memes since 2020.

Origin

The first photograph of Willem Dafoe doing a split (shown below) was taken by photographer Dusan Reijin for the August 2012 issue of Interview Russia.^[1] The photograph did not make it into the print version of the magazine.^[2]

The second photograph of Dafoe splitting (shown below) was taken by photographer Marco Cella for the May 2019 issue of Cap 74024 magazine.^[3]

Prior to April 9th, 2021, the first image saw limited use in memes. On November 30th, 2014, Redditor Grubulon posted to the /r/photoshopbattles^[4] subreddit, where it garnered 25 upvotes and several Photoshop submissions. On May 17th, 2020, X^[5] user @drhingram posted a caption meme that gained four reposts and over 30 likes in four years.

On April 9th, 2021, X^[6] / Twitter user @missbettyfinn posted a cropped version of the image, captioning it, "The tongs preventing me from opening the kitchen drawer I need…" The post (shown below) garnered over 23,000 reposts and 189,000 likes in three years, popularizing the image online.

Spread

On July 26th, 2021, Redditor rrrreda launched another Photoshop battle based on the image, with the submission garnering over 19,800 upvotes in /r/photoshopbattles^[7] in three years. On June 27th, X^[8] account @HugeNintendoDS posted an edit in which a large Nintendo DS console was edited in, mirroring Dafoe's post. The post (shown below, left) gained over 490 reposts and 4,800 likes in three years.

On September 1st, X^[9] user @POWERC0SMIC made a thread of Willem Dafoe striking unusual poses during his photoshoots, posting both photographs. The first post in the thread (shown below, right) garnered over 360 reposts and 1,900 likes in two years.

In the following years, both photographs served as source material for caption memes on X, iFunny and other platforms. For example, on December 28th, 2021, iFunny^[10] user FriendFox posted a meme that received over 17,600 smiles on the platform in two years (shown below, left). On December 1st, 2023, X^[11] user @35mmPapi made a post that received over 19,000 reposts and 202,000 likes in two months (shown below, right).

The photographs also inspired occasional redraws.