About

William Afton Burning in Hell refers to a viral clip from Squimpus McGrimpus' analog horror fan series Five Nights at Freddy's VHS which shows villain William Afton burning and screaming in Hell. The clip has been used as source material for video caption memes, and for "he was forced to X" memes in particular.

Origin

On July 11th, 2020, YouTuber^[1] Squimpus McGrimpus uploaded "Finale," the last video of their fan-made Five Nights at Freddy's VHS analog horror series. One part of the video, a jumpscare, imagines William Afton, the main antagonist of the game series, burning and screaming in Hell (video shown below; 5:59 mark).

The image used in the video (shown below, left) is an edited version of an image of William Afton that appeared in a previous installment of the series (shown below, center), which, in turn, is an edited version of the photograph of the former Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives Thomas Dale DeLay (shown below, right).^[2]

Spread

The scene has been used as source material for memes at least since February 2021. On February 13th, 2021, iFunny^[3] user CL0WN posted the earliest discovered meme based on the video, a "he was forced to X" meme about Genshin Impact which gained over 140 smiles in two years (shown below).

More video caption memes using the clip were posted in the following months on YouTube, iFunny, Instagram and other sites. For example, on July 23rd, 2021, Instagram^[4] user thooottiii.mp3 posted a meme that gained over 3,500 views and 360 likes in two years and was widely reposted (shown below, left). On October 15th, 2021, iFunny^[5] user Lactatious posted a video caption that was featured on the app and accrued over 27,100 smiles in two years, assisting the spread of the format (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References