Wiseposting

About

Wiseposting refers to the practice of posting memes, most often image macros depicting various wise men and philosophers, with ironically wise and unwise phrases and puns on them — typically in the same vein as Wise Confucius. The practice began as a nightmare described on Twitter, resulting in the creation of the /r/wiseposting subreddit the next day. The phrases "mmm, no, very unwise," and "mmm, yes, very wise," are used by wiseposters to show approval or disapproval of various posts.

Origin

On May 23rd, 2021, Twitter^[1] user @materialgirlrap posted about a nightmare she had where everyone online was "wiseposting" and she couldn't figure out how to do it correctly, resulting in people bombarding her with replies of "mmmm, no, very unwise" (shown below). The tweet gained over 41,700 likes and 7,300 retweets in five days.

In response to the tweet, many users replied "mmmm, no, very unwise" to troll the user. On May 24th, Redditor u/SmolBunneh created /r/Wiseposting,^[2] a subreddit inspired by the post for users to "wisepost" on. The first post to the subreddit, by u/ZestieZest, is an image macro featuring Confucius under text reading, "mmm, yes, very wise," garnering over 790 upvotes in four days (shown below, upper). On May 24th, u/dealsnbusiness1999 posted^[5] a version reading, "mmm, no, very unwise" (shown below, lower).

Spread

/r/Wiseposting

The /r/Wiseposting subreddit gained over 11,600 followers in four days, resulting in a large number of posts to the subreddit, defining the genre with shitpost Wise Confucius sayings, many using popular ironic meme phrases and modern slang in the Confucius style. For example, on May 25th, Redditor u/Cashfluffy posted an image macro to /r/wiseposting^[3] reading, "it takes 2 wipes to know you needed 3 wipes, but 3 wipes to know you needed 2," garnering over 3,000 upvotes in three days (shown below).

On May 26th, u/Omnicide103 posted an image macro to /r/wiseposting^[4] titled, "trans rights? mmmm, yes, very wise," garnering over 4,500 upvotes in two days and becoming the top post on the site as of May 28th (shown below, left). On the same day, u/Memeedeity posted^[6] an image macro reading, "just because on cannot find the funny does not mean it is not there," garnering over 2,100 upvotes in the same span of time (shown below, right).

Beyond this, the subreddit also features more general shitposts and memes that reference wisdom or feature wise men in some way (examples shown below, left and right).

Outside /r/Wiseposting

On May 27th, 2021, Facebook^[7] meme page "Centrist Chads Central" posted an image macro originally posted to /r/Wiseposting^[8] by u/ineedausername124 featuring the original tweet and the "mmm, no, very unwise" image, garnering over 900 reactions and 100 shares in a day (shown below). Instagram^[9] page @sendfeetpix posted the same image on the same day, garnering over 1,000 likes in the same span of time.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References