You're Not Making X Better, You're Just Making Y Worse

About

You're Not Making X Better, You're Just Making Y Worse is an exploitable meme taken from an episode of the animated TV show King of the Hill. The format is used to create numerous image macros to criticize a wide range of topics. The format does this by showing someone or something aligned with a particular topic, and then criticizing them as making the topic worse instead of better.

Origin

The scene originated in the King of the Hill episode "Reborn to Be Wild," which first aired on Fox on November 9th, 2003.^[1] In the scene, Hank is trying to take Bobby away from the rock show, upset because he was under the impression that it was a typical worship show before it became about faux rock. Pastor K then tries to talk with Hank, saying "This is how we testify," and plays a riff on his guitar. Hank shudders and replies, "Can't you see, you're not making Christianity better, you're just making rock and roll worse."

This scene was uploaded to YouTube on July 13th, 2012, by the channel^[2] thoughtsoflobster, where it received over 270,000 views in nine years (shown below)

According to the site MemeGenerator,^[3] "Hank Hill On," as it's called, was created on December 1st, 2013, and currently has over 65 iterations on the site, with one of the earliest examples being a meme about Python and C programming (shown below).

Spread

Since 2013, it has been used for various issues and causes, typically to demean someone or something in a humorous manner. On November 11th, 2017, Twitter^[4] user ClassicCommie tweeted a usage of the meme template that has Hank Hill confronting an anarcho-capitalist, saying that they are making anarchy worse (shown below).

On July 9th, 2021, the template was used against the Nothing Stronger Than Family meme trend with Hank Hill arguing with Vin Diesel about the effect it had on meme culture. This meme was posted onto a King Of The Hill Facebook^[5] page, where it received over 1,600 likes in four months (shown below).

Template

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References