Woman Shouting Knives

Confirmed 77,435

About

Woman Shouting Knives refers to a symbolic artwork by a Russian artist Alena Sofronova in which knives and blades are flying out of a woman's mouth as she shouts, piercing a man she is shouting at. Starting in July 2019, the artwork gained popularity as a meme, with users adding humorous remarks that the woman might have said. No, I Will Not Wear My Fishnet Stockings is a popular snowclone associated with the format.

Origin

On September 25th, 2018, Russian website Adme^[1] posted a collection of 13 metaphorical artworks by artist Alena Sofronova. The first artwork in the collection, titled "The Scariest Weapon" ("Самое страшное оружие"), depicts a woman shouting at a man (shown below), with knives and blades flying out of her mouth and piercing the man, stabbing his heart. The illustration is a metaphor for the saying "words cut deeper than a knife."

Spread

In the following year, the original image was reposted by multiple users and groups on VK,^[2] Facebook,^[3] Twitter^[4] and other platforms. The image did not see use in memes until early July 2019, when it gained popularity among the Portugese-speaking users. While the original meme based on the image is unknown, on July 4th, 2019, Facebook^[5] group Eu amo chão de madeira posted the earliest known meme based on the image, with the post gaining over 3,100 reactions and 8,000 shares in one year (shown below, left). A July 7th, 2019, post by Poli-Usp memes^[6] received over 290 reactions and 7 shares (shown below, center).

On September 27th, 2019, Redditor^[7] Opify posted a Bone Hurting Juice version of the meme. The post received over 2,900 upvotes in /r/bonehealingjuice in six months and marks the earliest known English meme based on the format (shown below).

On December 11th, 2019, Facebook^[8] user Alexander Romero posted the image, captioning it "no I will not give you head" (shown below, left). The post received over 420 reactions and 1,800 shares and has been widely spread online in the following weeks, including reposts on Facebook^[9] and Reddit.^[10]

On April 20th, Twitter^[11] user @DeathSentencePC posted a version of the meme which received over 920 retweets and 5,400 likes (shown below, right). The tweet prompted the spread of the format on Twitter and Reddit in the following weeks; for example, a May 7th meme by Redditor^[12] _pixelpudding_ received over 13,500 upvotes in /r/okbuddyretard in two days.