About

Logical Fallacy Ref is an image macro series featuring photographs of sports referees with captions calling out the use of logically invalid arguments used in online debate.

Origin

On July 11th, 2015, a gallery was uploaded to Imgur^[1] containing 32 image macros of sports referees calling out various logical fallacies, which credited film critic Glen Welch as the creator of the series. Within two weeks, the gallery received more than 230,000 views.

Precursor: Your Logical Fallacy Is

On September 24th, 2011, the website YourLogicalFallacyIs.com^[6] was launched, which features explanations of many formal and informal fallacies often used in discussions on the Internet.

Spread

On July 12th, 2015, Redditor rtphokie submitted the Imgur gallery to the /r/AdviceAnimals^[3] subreddit, where it gathered upwards of 4,600 votes (88% upvoted) and 480 comments in the first two weeks. The following day, a Logical Fallacy Referee image about the "strawman" fallacy was reposted on 9gag.^[4] On July 15th, the political news site Dangerous Minds^[8] published an interview with Welch about the creation of the series. On July 16th, the "Fallacy Ref" Facebook^[7] page was launched, which highlights notable examples of the meme.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References