About

First World Metal Problems is an advice animal image macro series featuring a photograph of a man with a ponytail sitting on a bench wearing a black Stormtroopers of Death (S.O.D.) t-shirt and a solemn expression. The captions typically include trivial frustrations experienced by those who listen to the metal genre of rock music.

Origin

In November of 2011, a Quickmeme^[2] page was created titled "First World Metal Problems," featuring a photograph of Jimmy Cecco, the bassist of the metal band Animarium^[4] (shown below, left). On December 23rd, an image macro was posted on the /r/MetalMemes^[1] subreddit with the caption "I really like this song / but I can't show anyone because it's not brutal enough" (shown below, right).

Spread

On March 27, 2012, the Twitter account @metalproblems^[3] was created, which featured the Cecco photograph as the profile picture.

On the same day, 9gag^[10] user crosshatch123 reposted the same /r/MetalMemes image macro. Within seven months, the post received over 41,200 up votes and 6,200 Facebook shares. On July 20th, Redditor ZombieBurrito submitted an image macro to the /r/AdviceAnimals^[12] subreddit with the caption "Cute girl asks me what I'm listening to / Vaginal ejaculation pudding pig fetus" (shown below, right). Within three months, the post received over 5,700 up votes and 290 comments.

On September 4th, Pinterest^[11] user Alex Webster started a "First World Metal Problems" pinboard. On October 27th, the "Definitely Not Low" Tumblr^[8] blog submitted a post announcing that Cecco was the subject of the First World Metal Problems photograph and that he would be answering questions from fans on the Animarium Facebook^[9] page. As of October 29th, 2012, the Quickmeme page has accumulated over 2,500 submissions and a Facebook^[5] page titled "First World Metal Problems" has received over 400 likes.

Notable Examples

Additional examples can be found on Tumblr^[7] and FAILblog^[6] under the tag "#first world metal problems."

Search Interest

External Reference