What Is 'Ay Tone' Meme? 'The Sopranos' Meme Format Explained

As HBO's gangster series The Sopranos, wildly popular in the 2000s, started making a cultural comeback on social media, memes soon inevitably followed.

One of the most prominent ones, Ay, Tone, sees the character Paulie Gualtieri asking his boss Tony Soprano about some things that don't make sense to him, but if you never watched the series, it may be hard to make sense of it.

So, where did the "Ay, Tone" meme start and how did it become popular? Find this and more in our explainer.

Where Does "Ay, Tone" Come From?

In the The Sopranos series character Paulie "Walnuts" Gualtieri, portrayed by late actor Tony Sirico, is a friend and one of the chief henchmen of the protagonist Tony Soprano, the boss of the New Jersey crime family. In the series, Paulie speaks with a pronounced Italian-American accent, for example, pronouncing "hey" as "ay" and "Tony" as "Tone."

The memes in which Paulie Walnuts questions concepts that don't make clear sense to him and asks Tony to explain things to him started gaining popularity in early 2018, although who exactly started the trend is currently unknown. The caption in the meme usually imitates Paulie's manner of speech through the use of specific bastardized words.

The scene from which the image of Paulie in the red tracksuit is taken is from episode three "Mayham" of Season 6 of The Sopranos. Paulie doesn't actually say the phrase "ay, Tone" in the scene.

Ay Tone Usage In Memes

While Ay, Tone memes aren't inherently edgy, they have been used to make jokes about Holocaust denial and conspiracy theories due to the format being popular in places such as 4chan's /pol/ board, iFunny and certain parts of Twitter. Many examples in which the format is used to question Holocaust and other events can be found online.

The format has a much broader use, as Paulie can be made to question any concept that isn't quite clear. As Paulie is a very direct guy in the show, Ay, Tone memes have also been used as a mouthpiece for saying various things directly and without sweetening the truth.

Examples of Ay, Tone in a Sentence

• Ay, Tone, ain't no way a shrimp really fried that rice.
• Ay, Tone, why do they call it oven when you of in the cold food of out hot eat the food?

Christopher Moltisanti Explains

A variant of Ay, Tone meme, Christopher Moltisanti Explains meme format has The Sopranos character Christopher Moltisanti explaining various concepts to Tony … in his own, peculiar and often incorrect way. Neat!

For the full history of Ay, Tone be sure to check out our entry for more information.