Garlic Bread

About

"Garlic Bread" is an Italian bread dish topped with garlic and olive oil or butter. Online, it has become a popular subject of circlejerking and shitposting, with numerous ironic fan pages and accounts on major social media platforms.

Origin

The exact origin of the meme is unknown. Some have credited a video clip of English comedian Elaine Williams performing a cringeworthy stand-up comedy routine during an episode of the British reality television show Britain's Got Talent with popularizing garlic bread jokes online. In the clip, Williams awkwardly repeats the punchline "garlic bread" after the audience fails to react to her initial delivery (shown below). On April 23rd, 2011, YouTuber mitchlastone uploaded a clip of the footage.

Others have credited a screenshot of a Facebook post in which an elderly woman scolds her granddaughter for posting a photo and accidentally replies with the words "garlic bread" (shown below). On October 26th, 2013, image was submitted to the /r/facepalm^[4] subreddit, where it received upwards of 2,500 votes (94% upvoted) prior to being archived.

Spread

On October 27th, 2013, Redditor Dyxus submitted a post titled "What is the deal with 'garlic bread'?" to the /r/OutOfTheLoop^[9] subreddit, which received replies citing the Britain's Got Talent audition, the Facebook screenshot and a routine by British comedian Peter Kay. On September 19th, 2014, a clip of Elaine Williams' stand-up routine titled "Comedian fails at jokes, then shares bizarre punchline about garlic bread" was submitted to the /r/cringe^[1] subreddit. On April 15th, 2015, Redditor arribalosrudos submitted a photoshopped tweet of the phrase "Yeah sex is cool but have you ever had garlic bread" attributed to rapper DMX to /r/BlackPeopleTwitter^[7] (shown below). Prior to being archived, the post garnered over 8,000 votes (97% upvoted) and 220 comments.

On May 10th, the Garlic Bread Memes Facebook^[2] page was launched, gathering upwards of more than 261,000 likes in the following three years. On October 20th, the /r/garlicbreadmemes^[3] subreddit was launched, accumulating more than 8,000 subscribers in the next four months. On November 5th, the MTV^[5] entertainment news site published an article about the Garlic Bread Memes Facebook page. On January 22nd, 2016, Redditor TommieTheTurd submitted a photoshopped picture of a skeleton holding garlic bread to the /r/dankmemes^[6] subreddit (shown below).

On January 25th, 2016, the news site The Odyssey^[6] published an article about the rapid subscriber growth of the Garlic Bread Memes Facebook page. On February 23rd, Redditor Aleesus submitted a post titled "What is this garlic bread meme?" to the /r/OutOfTheLoop^[8] subreddit.

Transphobic Meme Controversy

On June 4th, 2016, the Garlic Bread Memes Facebook posted an image macro featuring two slices of garlic bread and a wordplay on the idiom expression "if i had a nickel for every time," implying that there are only two genders. The post was met with mixed to negative reception from the followers of the Facebook page, with some criticizing the transphobic implication of the joke while others responded with tongue-in-cheek comments and memes parodying the online debate on gender identity.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Google search queries for the keywords "garlic bread meme" saw a large spike in October 2013, the same month the Facebook screenshot was submitted to Reddit.

External References