You're Telling Me a Shrimp Fried This Rice?

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Part of a series on Misinterpretation (Comedy Trope). [View Related Entries]

About

You're Telling Me a Chicken Fried This Rice? refers to a snowclone in which a person intentionally misinterprets a phrase, such as "chicken-fried rice," and asks a question about it in the format "You're telling me a (x) fried this (y)?" Though it originated in the early 2010s, the format grew popular in the latter half of 2019.

Origin

The earliest known example of the post was tweeted^[1] February 22nd, 2013 by user @TamiCru, who tweeted "you're telling me a chicken fried this rice?", gaining over 1,300 retweets and 2,300 likes.

Spread

Over the following years, the format saw some popular variations. On June 10th, 2014, Twitter^[2] user @TMoney68 tweeted, "I love Chinese food as much as the next guy, but you'll never convince me a chicken fried this rice," gaining over 5,400 retweets and 7,100 likes (shown below, left). On December 3rd, 2015, Tumblr^[3] user lxnln posted a variation with Shrimp that gained over 100,000 notes (shown below, right).

The "Shrimp fried this rice?" variation would grow into one of the most popular. On August 1st, 2018, Twitter^[4] user @emiilywrld tweeted the joke, gaining over 47,000 retweets and 146,000 likes (shown below, left). In the latter half of 2019, the joke became more popular as people created many more variations. For example, on October 20th, 2019, user @Chaselyons^[5] tweeted, "so you’re telling me a boot cut these jeans," gaining over 43,000 retweets and 249,000 likes (shown below, right). Buzzfeed^[6] covered variations on the joke on December 1st, 2019.