Years of Academy Training Wasted

Submission 37,589

Part of a series on Toy Story. [View Related Entries]

About

"Years of Academy Training Wasted" refers to a memorable quote from the 1995 animated film Toy Story said by character Buzz Lightyear after he comes to the realization that he is a toy. Online, the captioned still of the scene has been used as an image macro, often in reference to wasted time.

Origin

On November 22nd, 1995, animated film Toy Story premiered in the United States.^[1] In one scene of the film, character Buzz Lightyear laments the time he assumes he spent training.

Years of academy training wasted!

Spread

On December 7th, 2012, Tumblr user jebiwonkenobi posted "I never feel like more of a failure than when I can’t remember a piece of Harry Potter trivia."^[2] On July 28th, 2013, Tumblr user mrsweasley replied to the post with two GIFs of Buzz Lightyear saying "Oh! I'm a sham! and "Years of academy training wasted" (shown below, left and right).^[3]

On November 17th, 2018, Instagram user supreme_memer_ren posted the first known meme based on the GIF, with the post receiving over 2,600 likes in eight months (shown below, left).^[4] On November 21st, 2018, Instagram user my.new.memepire posted another meme based on the image to the platform, gaining over 3,000 likes in the same period (shown below, right).^[5]

The format did not see any further spread until on June 15th, 2019, Redditor TheTrinketor posted a meme based on the format to /r/memes subreddit, gaining over 9,000 likes in one month (shown below).^[6]

In the following weeks, the format saw a significant spread on Reddit, with notable posts appearing in /r/memes,^[7] /r/dankmemes,^[8] /r/shittyranbow6^[9] and other subreddits.