Wow Cool Robot

About

Wow Cool Robot refers to an exploitable drawing intended to satirize people who miss the subtext of certain pieces of media. The original features a person looking at a Gundam and saying "Wow, cool robot!" while he ignores the missile flying over his head labeled "War is bad."

Origin

While the first appearance of the comic is unclear, the earliest known mention of the comic appeared on Twitter on May 17th, 2016, when user @Random_Factor^[1] posted a link to it, attributing it to their friend "Oleg" (comic shown below).

Spread

The comic spread in the Gundam fandom over the following year, appearing on Facebook^[2] and Twitter^[3] posts in that time. In June of 2017, variations began appearing on Twitter and Tumblr. On June 11th, 2017, Twitter user @frogkaro posted a redrawing of the comic referencing Blade Runner 2049, gaining over 150 retweets and 200 likes (shown below, left). On June 12th, Tumblr user samael made a variation based on Warhammer 40,000 that gained over 2,600 notes (shown below, right).

Tumblr also saw meta variations of the meme making fun of the comics original point. For example, user charlesoberonn posted a variation saying the comic missed an even deeper point about Gundam (shown below, left). User kitsunetrickster posted a minimalist edit of the meme (shown below, right).

Related Memes

Media Literacy

Media Literacy refers to a skill that allows a person to correctly interpret media message and reflect on them. Online, media literacy, and particularly lack of it, has been a subject of viral debates and memes, with users on social media frequently accusing others of having low media literacy over their interpretation of books, films, video games and other media.