Forums / Discussion / Meme Research

I've seen this a lot lately, at first I stumbled upon an imgur album, and even found websites dedicated to this.. any idea from where it originates?
imgur album
hadonejob.com

I think this thread is worth bumping. We had ONE thread.

Since then, I've seen a lot more of this phrase, generally used to draw attention to fails and the like. More recent Google Trends show a sharp peak followed by a more steady increase in the months after the last thread we had about this. In addition to all the evidence of spread in Olivia's post, there's a Facebook page founded way back on October first that now has 46,355 likes as of writing. A Youtube upload from September of the Ocean's Eleven scene Opspe mentioned has a little over 3,000 views, and that appears to be the earliest use in anything that's made it to YouTube.

In addition to the imgur album in OP, I found this one that's several months older and much more viewed. It was submitted to reddit on April 30, 2012, and has 3,396 upvotes and 972 points overall. However, the title has "Compilation" in it and there are comments asking where the phrase is from since they've heard it so much, so the reddit post isn't the origin.

This one (yes, 9gag) is from ten months ago, but I can't find a specific date because I don't know how to 9gag. But that appears to be the oldest example.

One of the more notable trends I'm seeing is its frequent crossing over with Shit Tyrone, get it together

The earliest one of these I remember seeing was this wildfires image:

That was the one on 9gag I linked to. I found it posted as a demotivational poster here.

This was posted on April 2, 2011. The original "Only Josh" picture dates back to at least May 2009, according to this post.

So, whadd'ya reckon? Article? I can start work on one tomorrow.

>KYM User
>9Gag

From an Ocean's Eleven line, maybe?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QXkTFKrW5U

That's the oldest example I can find, like it or not. Just because 9gag is guilty of stealing content, and I acknowledge that they do, doesn't mean that they don't have a legitimate userbase that could potentially make something memetic. It's already been shown that the "Only Josh" picture had spread around, so yes, it's a reupload, but the entry is concerned with the phrase "You had one job," and so far this is the earliest instance of that phrase in that context. Find an earlier example, and you can say whatever you want about 9gag.

About 7 months ago , I forum-posted Allen please add this which came from a video game. It doesn't exactly say "You had one job" but the implication is there. I can't tell how it morphed – if it did – to this, but a point to consider.

I think this sounds like a real thing. Its applicable to a lot of things, catchy, and the joke is immediately understandable.

It seems like a replacement for "fail", which is after all over five years old as a catch phrase.

The "Only Josh" picture in your post may be from 9gag, but the first instance of the "you had one job" phrase seems to be the one in Dons image.