It's an Older Meme, But It Checks Out

About

"It's an Older Meme, But it Checks Out" is an expression derived from a quote featured in the 1983 science fiction film Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. In discussion threads and comments, the reaction image is typically used to validate the authenticity of an Internet meme reference that is outdated or culturally relevant.

Origin

On May 25th, 1983, the film Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi was released. in which a strike team led by the character Han Solo manages to sneak past Empire's security under the guise of being an engineering crew. After Solo's shuttle communicates with an Empire official, Admiral Piett, on the way to the planet Endor, the antagonist Darth Vader asks if they provided a "code clearance," to which Piett replies "it's an older code, but it checks out" (shown below).

On July 17th, 2012, Redditor iwan_w replied to a joke referencing the "I Herd U Like Mudkips" meme with the phrase "It's an older meme, sir, but it checks out" (shown below).^[1]

Spread

On July 28th, 2013, Imgur^[2] user Valkor submitted a screen capture from the Star Wars scene with the caption "It's an older meme, sir / but it checks out" (shown below).

On June 26th, 2014, George Takei tweeted^[4] a Star Trek-themed image macro with the description "It's an older meme, but it checks out" (shown below). Within nine months, the tweet accumulated more than 1,300 favorites and 760 retweets.

On September 13th, Redditor pdmcmahon submitted an animated GIF of the Star Wars scene captioned with a parody dialogue between Vader and the Empire official to the /r/gifs^[3] subreddit (shown below). Within five months, the post gathered upwards of 4,100 votes (94% upvoted) and 300 comments.

Search Interest

Not available.

External References