You Are Sheltering Enemies of the State, Are You Not?

About

You Are Sheltering Enemies of the State, Are You Not? is a reaction image and exploitable image macro meme format based on a scene from the 2009 film Inglorious Basterds in which Hans Landa (played by Christoph Waltz) interrogates a French farmer, asking if he's hiding a Jewish family from the Nazis. The scene first became popularized as a meme in August 2019, becoming increasingly prevalent over the following years, sometimes as a phrasal template in which "enemies" is replaced with another word.

Origin

At the start of the 2009 film Inglorious Basterds, the antagonist (Hans Landa) interrogates a French farmer whom he suspects of hiding a Jewish family. While interrogating him, he says, "You are sheltering enemies of the state, are you not?" (shown below).

On August 7th, 2019, a now-deleted Redditor posted a meme to /r/memes^[1] using the image to describe playing a game of hide and seek as a child, garnering over 40,000 upvotes in four years (shown below). This is the earliest known meme to use the scene.

Spread

The meme spread over the following years, inspiring several viral versions. On October 26th, 2019, Instagram^[2] user meaningful_incellectuals_only posted a meme that gained over 2,200 likes in four years (shown below, left). On October 29th, 2021, Instagram^[3] user the28yearoldmale posted a version of the meme that gained over 3,100 likes in two years (shown below, right).

On August 2nd, 2023, Twitter^[4] user @ch1w33th3d0g posted a version of the meme about Twitter Blue after the platform announced that users will be able to hide their blue checkmarks, garnering over 60,300 likes in five days (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References