Stop Posting

About

“Stop Posting” is a set of image macros commonly used on discussion forums and imageboards in response to another participant’s spams or posts that are deemed uninteresting or irrelevant to the thread topic. The images can range from the blatant smack in the face “STOP POSTING” to the more gentle touch of the hand “It’s time to stop posting.”

Origin

“Stop posting” is a phrase commonly used as a response on BBS boards and discussion forum when a participant spams a series of messages or content repeatedly, causing nuisance or disrupting the conversation flow in a given thread. The first instance of “Stop Posting” image macro appeared on October 21st, 2005, via Subchat Forum^[1] where forum user Flatbush41 told another user AIM to:

Spread

The same image has been since re-used on popular imageboards like 4chan^[5] and other forums including FARK^[2], Newgrounds^[3] and eBaumsworld^[4], as well as several non-English language forums.

The Google Insights data indicates that the meme began to see significant spike in popularity with the circulation of this particular animated GIF file beginning sometime in late 2008:

In October 2009, a Facebook Page^[6] called “Stop Posting Crap Every 2 Seconds” was launched. Another notable derivative emerged sometime in 2009, featuring a kitten’s paw placed over a person’s hand and the caption that read: “it’s time to stop posting.”

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

^[1] Subchat – Re: UH OH! Here we go again!

^[2]FARK Forum – Sup Dawg, we heard you like universes, so we put the Universe in a universe so you can divide by zero when you divide by zero

^[3] Newgrounds Forum – How Do You Shave Your Gooch?

^[4] eBaumsworld Forum – Call centre worker from India bombards female customer with amorous text messages

^[5] 4chanarchives – Prude Chan (NSFW)

^[6] Facebook – I hate liking a page then it posting loads of crap on my wal

^[7] Tumblr – b4chan