But Your Kids Are Gonna Love It

About

But Your Kids Are Gonna Love It is a memorable quote uttered by the character Marty McFly (played by Michael J. Fox) in the 1985 science fiction comedy film Back to the Future. Online, a screen-capture from the scene has been used in image macros and reaction images featuring the quote as a punchline to various jokes about pieces of culture that were not appreciated in their own time.

Origin

On July 3rd, 1985, the film Back to the Future was released in theaters in the United States. In the film, the character Marty McFly travels back in time, from 1985 to 1955, and plays the song "Johnny B. Goode" at a school dance (video below, left). During the song, Marty plays a guitar solo filled with anachronistic flourishes and references that would appear foreign to the attendees of the dance. After his performance, they look at him confused, and he says, "I guess you guys aren't ready for that yet. But your kids are gonna love it."

On January 20th, 2013, Tumblr ^[1] user makisaumon posted a two-panel subtitled screen-capture of the scene. The image (shown below, right) received more than 540 notes in five years.

Spread

Five years later, on March 9th, 2018, Redditor ^[2] NightwingJay posted the image from Tumblr in the /r/PrequelMemes subreddit. They added the title "George Lucas when the prequels finished." The post (shown below) received more than 49,000 points (91% upvoted) and 535 comments.

Several days later, on March 13th, in the /r/dankmemes Redditor^[3] dank_lab posted a version of the meme with the caption "When you're a priest and you try to start an orgy in the church but people say no." The post (shown below, left) received more than 2,700 points (97% upvoted) and 40 comments.

On May 4th, Twitter ^[4] user @rbozell tweeted the image with the caption "John Carpenter after releasing The Thing in 1982." The post (shown below, center) received more than 2,400 retweets and 9,800 likes in seven days.

On May 9th, Twitter^[5] user @Chinnerdomain tweeted the meme with the caption "Hideo Kojima after releasing Metal Gear Solid 2 in 2001." The post (shown below, right) received more than 3,500 retweets and 11,000 likes in two days.

Two days later, The Daily Dot ^[6] published an article about the emergence of the meme.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References