About

Grumpy Grandpa, also known as “Veteran Grandpa,” is an advice animal image macro series featuring a photograph of an angry-looking elderly man. The captions include angry complaints from the narrow-minded perspective of a retired veteran, typically including racist, sexist homophobic remarks.

Origin

According to Google cache results, a page for "Grumpy Grandpa" was created on the image macro site Meme Generator^[1] in October of 2010, which featured a photograph of an enraged old man. Two of the earliest submitted examples featured captions with racist and xenophobic statements (shown below).

Precursor

The “grumpy old man” trope^[2] has been illustrated through several comedic characters in films and television shows, some of the most notable examples being the Saturday Night Live "Grumpy Old Man" character played by Dana Carvey (shown below, left) who often complains about changes in youth culture and modern conveniences, and the 1993 comedy film Grumpy Old Men's two retired widowers who argue, insult and pull various practical jokes on each other (shown below, right).

Spread

On November 25th, 2010, a thread about the advice animal was created on the Body Building Forums^[5] by member Gif_Brah, who referred to the series as "Veteran Grandpa." On November 11th, 2011, Body Building Forums^[4] member Jackedson5 submitted a thread featuring notable examples of the meme, receiving over 75 replies that month. On April 23rd, 2012, FunnyJunk^[6] user queedo submitted a compilation of Grumpy Grandpa image macros, which gained more than 37,000 views and 1,400 up votes within the next nine months.

Notable Examples

As of March 2013, the Grumpy Grandpa Meme Generator page has received over 900 items.

Back in My Day

The advice animal "Back in my Day" features a photograph of a surly old man pointing at the camera with captions joking about various cultural changes, including jokes about celebrities (shown below, left), television shows (shown below, middle) and adult entertainment (shown below, right). As of March 2013, a Quickmeme^[7] page for the series has received over 1,200 submissions.

Search Interest

External References