The Author of the Journals, My Brother

Editor's Note: This entry contains spoilers from Gravity Falls

About

"The Author of the Journals, My Brother" (sometimes known as "Dramatic Author Meme") is a quote by Stanley "Grunkle Stan" Pines from American animated series Gravity Falls announcing the arrival of his twin brother Stanford Pines in the episode "Not What He Seems". The climactic quote and scene (specifically the reveal shot) gained memetic traction and became something of a catchphrase in the fandom. The structure typically involves a mundane or irrelevant question, to which the answer "The author of the journals…my brother" is given.

Origin

"Not What He Seems" is the eleventh episode of the second season of Gravity Falls. Airing March 9, 2015, it was Disney XD's most watched series broadcast ever with just over 2 million viewers ^[1]. The climax in question involves Grunkle Stan's mysterious giant portal about to go off. His great niece Mabel Pines, despite her twin brother Dipper's demands to shut it down, trusts her great uncle and allows the machine to activate, risking the fate of the universe. After a long, bright flash and a gravitational anomaly, a man walks out of the portal. Dipper says, "What? Who is that?" to which Grunkle Stan replies, "the author of the journals, my brother" as the twin reveals his face. That night, YouTube user TheNextBigThing uploaded a clip of the scene (quote starting at 2:11) which received upwards of 900,000 views as of September 27, 2015.

The meme gained traction in late June, 2015. Tumblr user mermandos posted about a dream in which Dipper walks into the Shack kitchen to the smell of delicious pancakes. When he asks who's making them, Stan responds in exactly the fashion seen in "Not What He Seems", revealing his brother Ford in a chef's hat ^[2]. Mermandos' post was reblogged by phantomrose96, who suggested that this may be a recurring theme in the Pines househould, inventing three more situations that fit the structure of a mundane question being answered by Stan in the same fashion ^[3]. This post has gained more than 15,000 notes in circulation.

Spread

Kazriku illustrated the three scenarios proposed by phantomrose96 ^[4]. Beccadrawsstuff created a fourth, original scenario ^[5] which was then crossposted to Reddit's r/gravityfalls ^[6].

References to the scene and quote, mostly on Tumblr ^[7], ranged from GIF's, text posts, fan art, edited images of the reveal shot, to remixed videos of the scene, including at least two Unexpected John Cena derivatives shown below (the lower one containing clips from "A Tale of Two Stans", the episode following "Not What He Seems")

The quote and scene often crossover with the Steven Universe fandom, such as in the video below by YouTube user Morgan Wable-Keen, an edit of the Steven Universe theme song which received upwards of 100,000 views as of September 27, 2015.

The meme has been mentioned by several compilation posts of notable 2015 memes. ^{[8] [9]}

Various Examples

Search Interest

Not available

External References