Your Profile Pic vs. You In Real Life

About

Your Profile Pic vs. You In Real Life is a series of memes, including image macros, showing images representing profile pictures, often from various anime series, under the caption "your profile pic" alongside images representing what the person using the picture actually looks like, labeled, "you in real life." The earliest version of the meme was posted to Reddit in October 2017 and inspired variations over the following years on sites including iFunny, Instagram and Reddit.

Origin

On October 24th, 2017, Redditor averageN posted an image macro to /r/justneckbeardthings^[1] showing three anime profile pictures labeled "your profile pic" over three images of neckbeards labeled "you in real life," garnering over 20,100 upvotes in six years (shown below). This is the earliest known version of the meme.

Spread

The meme spread over the following years as people made new variations of it, changing the images. On September 12th, 2018, Redditor Vulprex posted a version of the meme to /r/Animemes,^[2] garnering over 1,800 upvotes in five years (shown below, left). On November 25th, 2019, Facebook^[3] user Mangas Drome posted a version of the meme using only one pfp that was reposted by Facebook^[4] user Anime Voice in June 2021, garnering over 23,000 shares and 81,000 reactions in two years (shown below, right).

On March 27th, 2020, a version of the meme was posted to /r/okbuddyretard^[5] that gained over 2,900 upvotes in three years. On January 24th, 2022, iFunny^[6] user Parana_Clube posted a version of the meme that gained over 7,500 smiles in a year (shown below).

On April 27th, 2023, Twitter^[7] user @ShitpostGate posted a version of the meme that gained over 11,700 likes in under 24 hours (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References