William Knifeman

Submission 1,758

Part of a series on MLG Era TikTok Revival / MLG Meme Revival. [View Related Entries]

About

William Knifeman is the name of a character from the FX TV show Reservation Dogs (portrayed by actor Dallas Goldtooth), who is a Native American warrior. Online, his introduction and "Ah Ah Ah" warcry started to get integrated into Call of Duty: Warzone clips when the player executes a skillful knife move or kill, often involving throwing the knife into an enemy from a long distance. As MLG TikTok Revival Era began, William Knifeman became one of many different memes to often be featured in such MLG videos.

Origin

On August 12th, 2021, the FX official TikTok^[1] account posted the scene from Reservation Dogs in which William "Spirit" Knifeman introduces himself. Captioning it as him being someone not heard of in history books, the character's first foray into TikTok earned over 690,000 likes in three years and helped create the audio that would be used in later TikToks (shown below).

William Knifeman would quickly find itself being inserted into gaming highlight clips shortly after his introduction to the TV series. One of the first instances of William Knifeman being used can be found in the TikTok by trueepidemic,^[2] who uses it after landing a long-range knife throw kill while playing Warzone. In the clip, after hitting the throw, William Knifeman's introduction clip is inserted to signal that it was a great knife play, gaining 7,300 likes in two years (shown below).

Spread

As 2022 continued, William Knifeman's role within TikTok clips would continue to change. On March 27th, 2022, TikToker __knifeman^[3] uploaded a clip in which the entire backing audio was the repeated "Ah Ah Ah" yell of Knifeman while retaining the original usage of having the introduction from the show being inserted at the end. This newer way of using William Knifeman earned over 356,000 likes in two years and helped in experimenting with his versatility for memes (shown below).

By late 2022, William Knifeman became one of many different memes often spammed in Warzone highlight clips, along with the Vine Boom sound effect. On October 21st, 2022, TikToker baesoldier^[4] uploaded a TikTok in which several different memes are strung together on top of Warzone footage to showcase his triple kill. Within the clip, however, the William Knifeman "Ah" sound is used on each successful knife kill, separating it from the rest of the introduction clip in a trend that would be continued going into 2023 (shown below).