Where Did The Image Of The Woman Vacuuming Her Carpet Come From? 'The What' Meme Explained

A meme showing a woman smiling rather awkwardly as she cleans her rug using a specialized vacuum has made a resurgence in 2024, with a viral Twitter / X trend that asks people for their strangest experiences as freelancers. But the "Rug Doctor Woman" meme is an older classic from 2017, when someone first snapped an unflattering photo of a peculiar rug cleaner advertisement.

Sometimes called the "The. What." meme, the Rug Doctor Woman ad is one of those photos that is perfect for meme exploitation. Here's how the photo became a viral meme that lasted well into the 2020s.

Where Does The Image Of The Rug Doctor Woman Come From?

Carpet cleaner brand Rug Doctor released an ad campaign featuring a blonde woman dressed in slacks and a lilac cardigan sometime in the early 2010s, before 2014. The ad campaign was published nationwide in the United States, with the poster of the woman making its way to numerous retail stores alongside Rug Doctor products and rentals.

But it isn't the original ad that was turned into a meme; the meme was born when a photo of the ad was taken at an angle and then edited to show zoomed-in images of the model's face, showing off her full-on grimace in lieu of a smile. The image was posted to Reddit's /r/funny by /u/Kittty_velor, where it gathered over 5,000 upvotes.

How Did The Image Of The Rug Doctor Woman Become A Meme?

Some early iterations of the memes played into the idea of a woman grimacing while cleaning her rug, with Instagram page @_made_in_england_ sharing a version of the meme with the text "no stain = no murder" inserted above the woman.

Sometime during the meme fest surrounding the supposed "Storming of Area 51," a different version of the meme with the words "The. What" placed over the woman's face made the rounds on Reddit in 2019.

First Area 51 meme to make me cackle out loud: pic.twitter.com/udxsjnscco

— Greg Newkirk 🔦 (@nuekerk) July 15, 2019

Why Did The Rug Doctor Meme Have A Resurgence In 2024?

On April 24th, 2024, X / Twitter user @sylessae posted the "The. What" meme and asked people for the craziest stories from their time working as a freelancer, receiving responses from users like @nene_kiki_ and @wyrmforge that gathered several thousand likes apiece.

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For the full history of the Rug Doctor Woman ad, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information.