About

Freddie Mercury Rage Pose is a rage comic character made from a photo of deceased British musician and former lead vocalist for the rock band Queen Freddie Mercury. The image is typically used to indicate that an extraordinary feat has been accomplished, similar to the Fuck Yea illustration.

Origin

The photo of Freddie Mercury raising his fist was taken during a Queen concert in Newcastle at St. James Park in 1986. Although the real photo is most likely from an official Queen book, Freddie Mercury can be seen making the pose at 13:38 in the video below from a different angle. Photographic and art prints of the pose, along with other poses from the same concert, can be purchased online on various websites such as Art.com^[6], Art-Poster-Shop^[7] and Amazon^[4].

The photo appeared in the final panel of a Reddit f7u12 comic titled "Trying new things can lead to success"^[1] posted by user CyberPope on July 19th, 2011. The comic was able to reach the front page with 6,198 up votes.

Spread

A thread was created on July 19th, 2011 by Redditor Huckster titled "We need Reddit's Help!"^[2] that linked to an image asking for someone to turn the photo of Freddie Mercury into a rage comic character. Redditor keepyourfork received the top voted comment with the following version of the image:

Derivative: Faith in Humanity Has Been Restored

"Faith in humanity has been restored" is an expression associated with the Freddie Mercury image that is used to express approval in the opposite sense of I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

Derivative: So Close

"So Close" is a variation of the Freddie Mercury image that is often used in comics to indicate that someone has been prevented from successfully completing a goal at the last minute. The image was created by Redditor RokeRot on July 20th, 2011 in an f7u12 thread titled "Damn you, inspiration."^[3]

Freddie Mercury Statue

A statue of Freddie making a similar raised fist pose, built by sculptor Irena Sedlecka, was unveiled by Freddie's father in Montreux, Switzerland on November 25th, 1996.

Search Interest

Search queries for "freddie mercury rage" and "freddie mercury meme" rose sharply in July of 2011, the same month the character was created on Reddit.

External References