Who Is Chuck Norris And What Is He Capable Of? The Classic Meme, Explained And Remembered

He counted to infinity, twice. He puts a quarter in a parking meter and gets a gumball. Some say he's the reason Waldo is hiding. He'll roundhouse kick you to the face if you cross him, so they had to rename the street they dedicated to his honor.

If you didn't know already, we're talking about Chuck Norris. The man, the myth, the legend. Facts about Norris and his great deeds were one of the most notable memes of the mid-2000s internet. Let's explain why.

Who Is Chuck Norris?

Chuck Norris is an American actor and stunt man famous for his roles in series like Walker: Texas Ranger. Norris became an icon of hyper-masculinity in American culture, known for wielding guns and performing outrageous feats of strength. This sort of exaggerated macho vibe inevitably led to some making fun of Norris.

How Did 'Chuck Norris Facts' Begin?

Chuck Norris facts actually began as Vin Diesel facts. A lively conversation on the chatroom SomethingAwful in 2005 about Vin Diesel led a user to post a word generator that would create outlandish Vin Diesel "facts" about his strength and fighting ability. These facts followed the same format that Chuck Norris Facts would later take up, including lines like "Vin Diesel played Russian Roulette with a fully loaded gun and won."

The meme quickly became popular and spun off into Chuck Norris Facts, so that by the end of 2005 there was a dedicated website where users could post facts, rate them and get them printed on clothing.

What Are Some Chuck Norris Facts?

• Chuck Norris can delete the Recycling Bin.
• Chuck Norris can speak braille.
• There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live.
• Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.
• Chuck Norris doesn't cheat death. He wins fair and square.
• Fire escapes were invented to protect fire from Chuck Norris.
• Chuck Norris once won a game of Connect Four in 3 moves.
• Chuck Norris once visited the Virgin Islands. They are now The Islands.
• When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.
• Once a cobra bit Chuck Norris' leg. After five days of excruciating pain, the cobra died.
• Chuck Norris died ten years ago, but the Grim Reaper can't get up the courage to tell him.

How Is Chuck Norris Used In Memes?

Many other folk heroes have been joked about the way posters in 2005 joked about Chuck Norris. Paul Bunyan, John Henry and even legends around George Washington might be taken as possible inspirations for Chuck Norris Facts. At the center of the meme is a man so strong, so relentless and so epic that no force either human-made or natural can stop him.

There is, however, a core of irony to Chuck Norris memes. Many made fun of his show Walker: Texas Ranger during the course of its run for being a little too unbelievable and not very good, because it seemed to revolve almost entirely around Norris fighting people. It seems that the facts around him follow this trend of mocking flamboyant masculinity.

How Is This Meme Remembered?

Old memes never die, they just get mixed into the perpetual stew of internet culture, where they lend flavors to the later memes that inherit their legacy. Chuck Norris Facts were resurrected for a moment in 2017, when they became a form of anti-meme. With Impact font but without bottom text, these new Chuck Norris memes called back to earlier meme traditions while deliberately not making sense in a meta-ironic way that still feels very 2017.

---

For the full history of Chuck Norris Facts, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information.