You May Have Outsmarted Me, But I Outsmarted Your Outsmarting

Submission 25,962

Part of a series on JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. [View Related Entries]

About

You May Have Outsmarted Me, But I Outsmarted Your Outsmarting is a memorable translation of a line of dialogue spoken by Joseph Joestar in the 17th episode of the anime series JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. Since airing in Japan in 2013, the phrase and a screenshot featuring it have gained significant popularity online outside the JoJo fandom, frequently referenced in image macros and post text.

Origin

On February 2nd, 2013, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Episode 17 aired on Japanese television. In one translation of the scene, the protagonist, Joseph Joestar, is subtitled as saying, "You may have outsmarted me, but I have outsmarted your outsmarting" to an antagonist during a fight (original scene shown below, differently subtitled). On that day, u/Christemo commented on how great the episode was on a post to /r/anime,^[1] specifically quoting the line in their post.

On August 29th, 2015, Tumblr^[2] user outofcontextjojo posted a screenshot from the episode featuring the subtitle captioned, "Only the Outsmarted can Outsmart the Outsmarter," garnering over 3,200 notes in roughly six years (shown below). On February 3rd, 2016, Redditor u/define_irony linked the post in a comment reading "Joseph Joestar in a nutshell" on a discussion of the episode to /r/anime,^[3] garnering over 90 upvotes in five years.

Spread

Over the next few years, the scene and sentence alone spread across anime and _JoJo's Bizarre Adventure _ communities across social media platforms, particularly Facebook, and typically as an image macro.

For example, on June 9th, 2017, Facebook^[4] page AnimeHub posted the screenshot as an image macro with the top text, "YOU CAN'T DEFINE THE ENTIRE FRANCHISE WITH A SINGLE SCREENSHO-" garnering over 260 reactions in four years (shown below, left). On April 15th, 2018, Facebook^[5] page J-List posted an image macro using the screenshot referencing Pokemon, garnering over 4,000 reactions and 1,700 shares in three years (shown below, right).

On May 1st, 2019, Facebook^[6] page Car memes posted an image macro using the screenshot, garnering over 720 shares and 2,600 reactions in two years (shown below). On November 28th, Redditor u/aegis94 posted an image macro combining the screenshot with a comedic text conversation to /r/PewdiepieSubmissions,^[7] garnering over 40,000 upvotes in roughly two years (shown below, right).

By 2020 the phrase began taking off on its own, used in post titles and text memes completely unrelated to JoJo's Bizarre Adventure to describe someone being outsmarted.

For example, on July 22nd, 2020, Redditor u/dj_ash posted a Marvel-themed image macro under the post title "You may have outsmarted me but. i have outsmarted your outsmarting." to /r/memes,^[8] garnering over 56,000 upvotes in eight months. A Reddit^[9] search for "i outsmarted your outsmarting" shows numerous posts with thousands of upvotes, many of them using the title without referencing JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.