Everything We Know About The 'Big Dick Is Back In Town' Guy And How He Became Sydney's Most Polarizing Meme Legend

For over a decade, residents of King’s Cross, Sydney, Australia have been mesmerized by sightings of an elusive old man in a sweater and white fedora known only as “Big Dick.”

Big Dick colloquially gained this coveted title over several years for the oversized crewneck he’s often seen wearing, brazenly advertising, "BIG DICK IS BACK IN TOWN" on the front and “AND LOVING IT” on the back, a cheeky and unexpected message that’s hard not to smirk at when you eventually come across one of the many photos of him posted online. Despite all the love and attention that Big Dick gets online, though, the most fascinating thing about him is how little we know about the man under the sweater.

Is his real name Dick? We don’t know. Does he only wear the sweater when he returns to King’s Cross from a trip? We also don’t know. The perpetually mysterious aura that surrounds Big Dick coupled with the timelessly funny image of an old man in a crude sweater has given him legendary status not only in Australia but across the world thanks to social media. Still, it’s hard not to wonder, who is Big Dick and what does a man like that do in his day-to-day life?

It’s hard to pinpoint the first moment that Big Dick appeared online, but June 2011 marks his first known mention. That month, Twitter user @Jumbso tweeted the somewhat cryptic phrase, “70 year old man wearing BIG DICK IS BACK IN TOWN shirt,” coming across as more of an idea than a sighting. Then, on September 18th, Twitter user @MarkCassone tweeted, “Seen on Oxford st, 80yo man wearing shirt ‘Big Dick is back in town…’ On the back ‘and loving it!’” Although there’s no photo to accompany it, there is absolutely no doubt that this is the same man, confirmed doubly by the fact that Cassone’s location on Twitter is listed as Sydney, Australia.

Only a month later, another Twitter user claimed to have seen the man, writing, “I should've taken a photo of the old man swinging his legs back and forth on a bench wearing a jumper saying ‘BIG DICK IS BACK IN TOWN’!” Two more sightings were reported on Twitter before the end of the year, but still no photos of Sydney's local cryptid had been shared.

In November 2012, the first known photo of Dick was posted to Twitter by @KireFCB, although it’s likely this is a reupload from somewhere else. Searching back far enough on Twitter, the photo of Dick made the rounds online late in 2012. Barstool Spots’ Dan Katz tweeted about it the day after KireFCB’s post, writing about how he wanted to get the man’s sweater. It was posted to Tumblr and Instagram a few times, where it often gained hundreds of notes and likes.

Soon, new photos of Dick started to emerge, such as a photo of the back of his sweater, showing the words, “and loving it,” by Twitter user @smh_andrew in March 2013. Another back photo was posted of him that July, followed by a new front-facing photo in August that was reposted by Fail Sign.

That November, a very high-quality, professional photo of Dick smoking a cigar while smiling into the camera was posted to Twitter, also gaining notable traction on Tumblr. The photo is a stark contrast to the other photos of Big Dick, which are much more voyeuristic. Clearly, the photographer asked before taking this photo and Big Dick was down, never seeming more aware of his growing popularity online, or at least in Sydney. In a quick few months, the bigfoot of Sydney had gained legendary status in certain online circles and this was only the beginning.

Over the years, dozens more photos of Big Dick were posted online, some voyeuristic, some more planned and professional. In 2016, a Facebook page for Dick was created, where 12 photos of him are archived. It’s not clear who created this Facebook page or if it has any sort of official connection with the man. Some of these are group photographs, showing Dick posing beside his adoring fans, while many are simple reuploads from across the web. Two of the most rare Dick photos on the profile show him walking along the beach and posing with a Black woman in front of a store, looking down at her with a huge smile on his face, almost as if he’s looking down her shirt. Keep this in mind, because we’ll come back to it later.

There’s only so much we can tell about Dick from his photographs, which have been appearing less frequently since 2017 but have continued to be popular repost material. Beyond that, the sweater itself has taken on new life in the world of print-on-demand clothing and become a fairly popular item of clothing to draw anime girls in. The most interesting and telling anecdotes about Dick come from posters who have actually encountered the man IRL, revealing the oddball, perhaps cantankerous personality behind the orange shades and lovable sweater.

An early comprehensive discussion about Big Dick was posted to the /r/Sydney subreddit in June 2014, shortly after he really started to gain notoriety online. In the post, the now-deleted user asks if anyone knows him, saying he’s trying to contact him for a creative project. One Redditor says they see him at King’s Cross all the time. Another says he frequents The Fortune of War, a bar located in Sydney.

Another writes that he used to come into their Dick Smith store (an Australian electronics store) and that he used to be an artist, with another deleted commenter adding, “I think on another thread someone said he was an artist who did sketches of drag queens.” Yet another commenter claims to see him at the horse race track in Rose Hill wearing similar sweaters, suggesting Big Dick might have a whole wardrobe of hilariously inappropriate attire. This is seemingly backed up in a comment about Dick posted to /r/Sydney in 2017 where the user writes, “[He] used to have a jumper that said ‘I did it with Jackie O’ and then on the back it said ‘Oh Oh Oh’.”

While these reports on Dick are positive and neutral at best, others have shared less than pleasant stories about the bigfoot of Sydney, even accusing him of horrific crimes. In another 2016 post to /r/Sydney sharing a photo of him yawning, a commenter writes: “He harassed my GF and her coworkers when she worked in a coffeeshop. He would come close to the girls at the cafe and sniff/grope them, tell them that he is gonna rape them. Also he would draw them naked and would try selling pictures back to the girls.” Another curious commenter seemingly backs this up, responding, “you are right he did have some pretty creepy drawing on him he was showing me of his favorite Tr***ys,” asking if the cops were called. The original commenter says that they were not, writing, “From what I understand it's not worth the trouble. He might be creepy and inappropriate, but he is not the worst. He is just an old sad man who tries to get attention.”

The story about him showing the user a drawing of a trans person seems to at least somewhat back up the accounts of him being an “artist,” particularly bringing to mind the 2014 comment about him sketching drag queens. Drag queens and trans people aren’t the same, of course, but an unknowing person might get the two mixed up if just looking at drawings or photos. The mixture of these two ideas is troubling; the former paints Big Dick as an artist, fascinated in counter-culture and looking to depict a lesser-seen side of life. The latter, where he sits around in public drawing trans people while groping women, paints him in a much creepier light.

A commenter on the 2016 /r/Sydney post writes, “I took a picture with this guy when I was in Sydney. The photo is him looking down my shirt… good times.” While we can’t confirm anything, this sounds a lot like the photo shared on his Facebook page that same month, showing Dick smiling and looking down the shirt of a Black woman. Although, judging by the comment and the smiles on both parties in the photo itself, this woman probably didn't notice where he was looking.

One of the most fascinating stories about Big Dick was posted to /r/Sydney in 2016. In the post, the user explains how Dick came into their store and told them he was watching a European movie on the TV and saw a woman who “had her titties out” in his thick, Scottish accent. Dick continued, saying, "Her titties were just flapping about! they were just out! i didn't realise they could show that on the telly!" What does this story tell us about Dick? Not much, but it’s at least a bit of a palette cleanser after learning about him being a potential groper. If anything, it points to Dick being an eccentric, perhaps not in his right mind entirely. It doesn’t excuse the behavior, but it cushions his reputation at least marginally.

Way back in February 2014, an image of Dick gained over 2,000 notes on /r/Funny, offering what might be the earliest recount of him being a bit of a, well, dick IRL. The now-deleted commenter writes:

“He's some guy who was born with money who walks around buying shit and asserting his dominance on the street. At least that's what people say. If you ever approach him, he tells you to fuck off. Easily the rudest cunt in the CBD.”

Dick seems to have a reputation as a chronic “people watcher,” something that’s mentioned in a few comments sprinkled throughout Reddit, including a comment on the February 2014 post that claims he hangs around CBD (the local red light/entertainment district) and just stands around watching people pass by in one of his many sweaters.

The most revealing (if true) comment about Dick was posted to /r/blursedimages by u/ZebraSong, who backs up several claims about Dick and even provides a name. In his comment, he claims that he used to live next to Dick, whose real name is Tom. He shares that Tom is a cartoonist and has a collection of sweaters, mentioning the “Jackie O” one specifically, which has been mentioned in comments before. He ends the comment writing, “He’s well known (& loved) in the neighborhood,” not painting a picture of an angry or threatening man at all, but a lovable eccentric artist, just how his unknowing fans want him to be.

Even with all these claims floating around online, a big question remains: “How much weight do any of them hold?” The real answer is that we don’t know. To believe any of these comments you have to be willing to put your full trust in strangers on the internet to tell the truth, a practice many are discouraged from following the second they get online. The sheer number of stories about him suggests that someone has to be telling the truth, but the two opposite possible personalities of Tom the cartoonist, one as an eccentric artist and one as a creepy predator, leave us at an impossible crossroads between marking the man a legend or a threat. Maybe there are aspects of both types of accounts that are true; maybe it all depends on what kind of mood you catch him in. Only those who have met and talked with Tom in real life will ever know for sure and that’s probably the way it should be.

Tom has never made any known effort to be online. He doesn’t have a social media page or presence that we know of; he’s not a TikToker and he’s not an influencer. Instead, Tom is the definition of an organic, living shitpost on and offline. He came to internet fame through the power of others sharing and enjoying his photos by being himself: an old dude who likes to wear funny sweaters to entertain passersby or maybe get some attention. He’s never tried to capitalize on his online fame beyond (perhaps begrudgingly) taking the occasional photo with a fan and (allegedly, sometimes) asking them for $5 for the privilege. What’s more, there haven’t seemed to be any new photos or discussions of Tom posted past 2017, with the exception of the 2020 comment revealing his name. He’s an old man; chances are he might not even be alive anymore. He could be the worst man ever or the world’s greatest saint and ultimately, it wouldn’t matter.

After all this digging, only one conclusion can be made for people who just want to laugh at a meme about a man in a sweater that says “dick” on it: In the case of Tom the meme, better known as Big Dick, it’s better to approach it with a “the less you know, the better” mindset. That’s not a mindset that we’re used to in the modern days of online discourse. We have so much information readily and easily available to us that when we can’t find the information we want about someone or something, even if that someone is just a random old man in Sydney with a funny sweater, it’s almost infuriating. It makes you want to set out on a journey to uncover all the possible information you can on the person, good or bad, just so that you can know, definitively, what might drive them to live the way you assume they live from your limited perspective. It’s a bit of a selfish and intrusive impulse, one driven by the endless thirst for useless knowledge at all costs, but it’s one that’s hard to let go of. If nothing else, let this article stand as a testament to that.

In the end, all we’re left with is a muddied portrait of a man we saw as a simple, funny meme a short while ago. We’re no better off for it, but at least we know.