Everything The Light Touches Is
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About
Everything The Light Touches is an Image Macro phrase that received significant use in 2011 as an early internet meme. The phrase, spoken by Mufasa to Simba is used to define a certain group or area as good, with a warning being given in regards to things outside of the fandom.
Origin
The phrase comes from the movie The Lion King, which released on June 24th, 1994, as part of the Disney animated movie empire. In the scene, Simba wakes up Mufasa as the sun rises, shortly after being born, with Mufasa explaining to Simba about the Pridelands, and the circle of life. On July 22nd, 2020, the YouTuber NM[1] uploaded the scene to YouTube Kids, where it gained over 203,000 views in four years (shown below).
One of the earliest uses of the scene as a meme was found on 4chan, uploaded by an anonymous poster on October 19th, 2011, in which the caption[2] itself is saying to stay away from the site 4chan, a common tactic of Gatekeeping for the time period. The earliest still existing example, however, is the DeviantArt user GhostlyFox-Akihiko[3] who uploaded their own example on February 9th, 2013, with a caption explaining that there's a lot of them floating around (shown below, left and right).
!Spread
The scene, one of the first big memes in some early online communities, quickly spread around with people doing their own twists on it. On April 5th, 2013, the DeviantArt user MonsieurArtiste[4] uploaded a variation of the meme in which the speech about the circle of life and owning the lands was changed out to be about Mufasa telling Simba that he knows he wants to have Mufasa dead, asking that he just be discreet about it (shown below).
Over the years, the phrase continued to get posted with variations to it, including naming the location something different, or outright changing the phrase in it's entirety. In 2020, the Imgflip user Albertosaurus[5] uploaded a version of the meme using Philosoraptor as the middle image, calling into question the truth of the statement that everything the light touches is truly theirs and what it means, earning over 11,000 views in four years (shown below).
Various Examples
Template
Search Interest
External References
[2] KnowYourMeme – 4ChanExample
[3] DeviantArt – GhostlyFox-Akihiko
[4] DeviantArt – MonsieurArtiste
[5] imgflip – Albertosaurus
