Are You A Wizard

About

Are You a Wizard? is a reaction image series typically featuring a wall-eyed subject staring at the distance with a baffled and dumbfounded look.
It is mostly used in response to an extraordinary or stupendous remark made by another individual, though it can be used sarcastically to point out an obvious statement in similar vein to Captain Obvious.

Origin

One of the earliest mentions of the phrase “Are you a wizard?” comes from the webcomic Left Handed Toons in a June 19th, 2009 issue^[1] titled “Wizard Time.” In early 2010, a MemeGenerator page^[2] was created for “Are You a Wizard,” featuring a close-up photograph of a male fellow wearing glasses and a mustache:

Spread

The original Memegenerator page no longer exists, although a new one has been created and it was reposted to Corrupt Citizen on March 6 2010 and DangerousMinds.net on March 23 2010.

The image has been reposted on many image sharing websites as reaction faces.

• The Chive (May 2010)
• My Confined Space (May 2010)
• Angry White Dude (May 2010)
• Sharenator (June 2010)
• Flickr (August 2010)
• On FunnyJunk, as a constant stream of threads beginning in March 2010
• As an illustration of an article (November 2010)
• As a way to start a thread (February 2011)

The image became a popular reaction face on imageboards such as 4chan, as early as June 2010 [Caution, 4chanarchive link and NSFW content ahead], as well as comment sections and forum threads.

Notable Spin-Off

Following the popularity of the catchphrase and the macro, several Memegenerator spin-offs were created. Among them, only one, featuring the close-up picture of a child wearing glasses and simply named are you a wizard, ended up hitting the Legendary Tier on the website.

Macro response

Image reponses started appearing as well, targeting pictures of weird/threatening looking figures or other people with the same strabismus:

There are also macro crossovers with other memes:

My little Pony: Friendship is Magic:

Lolcats:

Magnets, how do they work?:

Search Interest

Google Insights for search show significant interest for the catchphrase around February 2010:

External References