About

"I'm Not A Robot" is a phrase displayed next to a check box in the Captcha service reCAPTCHA, which is used to determine if an Internet user is a spam bot. The reCaptcha is often used as a punchline in webcomics featuring cyborg or robot fictional characters.

Origin

In December 2014, a new reCaptcha system was introduced across many websites, which allows users to click a box to prove they are not a spambot (shown below).^[5] The service replaced the previous Captcha, which required users to type obscured words and numbers into a field.^[1]

Precursor: Are You Human?

Prior to the creation of the reCaptcha check box, some spambot prevention systems required users to perform simple tasks to prove they are "human." These inspired the creation of image macros featuring animals or other non-humans encountering the spambot software (shown below).

Spread

On May 26th, 2015, Tumblr^[4] user metalbreakdown submitted a comic of Mega Man confronting the reCaptcha when posting a comment on an imageboard (shown below, left). On June 22nd, Tumblr user breakfastbooty^[8] posted a comic of the character Penny Polendina from RWBY encountering a reCaptcha (shown below, right). On June 23rd, Redditor trinitynox reposted the image to /r/RWBY.^[7]

On December 23rd, Redditor ilpotatolisk submitted a comic of the cyborg character Genos from One-Punch Man viewing the reCaptcha on 4chan to the /r/4chan^[6] subreddit (shown below). On January 22nd, 2016, Redditor anthonyridad submitted a post asking about the "I'm not a robot" reCaptcha technology to the /r/explainlikeimfive^[3] subreddit, where it garnered upwards of 4,000 votes (89% upvoted) and 550 comments.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References