About

Aka-san (Japanese : 赤さん, lit. Mr. Baby) or Gedou Baby (外道ベイビー) is a series of exploitable image macros featuring a picture of smiling American baby and a caption that typically ends with the catchphrase "Masani Gedou!" (まさに外道), which roughly translates to "Downright Heresy!" in English. The joke usually consists of three parts: 1) a benign introductory statement disguised in gentleness and warmth; 2) a snippy or highly discouraging statement aimed at the reader; 3) the punchline "Downright Heresy," which implies "shame on you." The humor is derived from the juxtaposition between the baby's innocent smiling face and outrageous captions.

Origin

The original photograph of baby Stephen Rout was posted on his father Allen Rout's website on March 19th, 2000.^[1]

According to several Japanese sources, the earliest instances of Gedo Baby were initially posted on the Japanese imageboard Futaba Channel (2chan) circa late 2004, with Stephen's picture superimposed over an illustration from the popular Japanese comics Hell Stadium.^[2]

"Not like I'm gonna tell you jackasses!!!!!!" / ""Take a sh*t and hit the sack!!!!!!"

"Masani Gedou"

In Japanese, "Masani Gedou" is a colloquial expression reserved for the most condemnable situations and often associated with masculine characters portrayed in mangas and films (ex: Yakuza members). While the word Gedou literally means "way of the outside" as in non-Buddhist or unorthodox, it can be also used as a derogatory term meaning "demon" or "bad person."

Spread

The meme was imported to 2channel and exploded in 2channel's /news4vip/ (Breaking news: VIP) board, where it spawned hundreds of iterations exploring various subject topics, such as video games and internet culture, as well as black comedy involving personal despairs like unemployment and prolonged bachelor life. According to Google Insights, the popularity of baby macro series surged in the summer of 2005; there's an archive collection of the images uploaded by a 2channel user on August 22nd, 2005.^[4]

By early 2006, its frequent usage on high-traffic imageboards led to the launch of "Gedo Baby image macro generator" further boosting its propagation.^[5] In 2007 Aka-san reached its prime through photoshopped variations. It was also used as a censor bar in wrestling remixes on Japanese hubsites and blogs such as Nico Nico Douga (NND) and GeoCities.^[6] The NND Wiki entry for "Gedo Baby" was submitted on May 24th, 2008.^[7]

Father's Discovery

On July 27th, 2010, Reddit user NinjaBob posted a thread titled "My son is a meme"^[8] (direct link^[9]) which was then picked up by BoingBoing on the same day.^[10] On July 29th, parenting blog The Bad Moms Club made a blog post titled "Parenting in the 21st Century: When Your Kid Is Big In Japan.".^[11] On August 2nd, another parenting blog DadWagon interviewed Stephen, now ten years old, about his internet fame overseas.^[12]

Various Examples

"Don't sweat it. There's as many women out there as there are stars.""… Not that you'll be able to reach the stars!"

"Wow, the boy in this picture is your son. What? you're ashamed of your biggum son ? No way! That’s better than being scrawny; he looks healthy!"

"So, when is this pig shipped out?"

"Being you, your dinner tonight's just going to be some convenience store bentou, am I right? So I went and fixed you up some tempura. Doesn't it look delicious"

"… your fried GUPPIES!"

"Off to go eat that cup noodles, I bet. I've already poured in the hot water for you."

"… 3 HOURS ago!"

"Hi, missis. Sorry for addressing you when you're busy. But, in your house's attic…"

"There 's a dead ninja!!!"

"Be proud of yourself! Hah! you have many good points ! For example… example… lemme see…"

"Sorry, you're nothing but a creep."

Search Interest

External References