QRposting

About

QRposting refers to the practice of editing QR codes containing links to pirated copies of software, video games and other media into memes. In early January 2022, the trend, which mostly utilizes the Barnacle Boy Sulphur Vision and My Child Will X meme formats, gained viral spread on Twitter.

Origin

In late December 2021, a Barnacle Boy Sulphur Vision meme containing a QR code linking a full upload of recently released superhero film Spider-Man: No Way Home went viral across Twitter, Discord, Reddit and other websites. While the exact origin of the image is unknown, the earliest discovered public post of the image was made by Twitter^[1] user @TurtSoCal on December 28th (censored image shown below).

On December 30th, 2021, Redditor^[2] coconutfan27 posted the image to the /r/196 subreddit, where it gained over 1,200 upvotes in one week. On December 31st, Twitter^[3] user @xbox_awesome made a repost that gained over 5,400 retweets and 51,300 likes in one week.

Spread

On December 29th, Twitter^[4] user @TransGregory posted the earliest found variation of the meme, using the Barnacle Boy Sulphur Vision format to share a link to a pirate copy of Five Nights at Freddy's video games. The post gained over 460 retweets and 1,200 likes in one week (censored image shown below).

The format achieved virality on January 6th, 2022, after Twitter^[5] user @FASHIONKILLLA posted a My Child Will X meme linking a pirated copy of the Danganronpa video game trilogy. The post gained over 2,000 retweets and 11,500 likes in one day (censored version shown below).

Starting on that day, users on Twitter shared multiple versions of both My Child Will X and Barnacle Boy Sulfur Vision memes, which linked to pirate copies of software, video games and films. Additionally, some QR codes edited into the memes linked to bait-and-switch media such as Rickroll and other content.

The popularization of QR Posting led to massive popularity of My Child Will X format in early and mid-January 2022.

Cautionary Memes

After some of the QR code memes, such as the one linking a Mega NZ folder with installation files for Adobe software, were found out to link malware, memes warning against indiscriminately using the QR codes shared through memes were posted by users online (examples shown below). For example, on January 8th, 2022, Twitter^[6] user @imSarah_AM posted a meme warning against scanning the code which gained over 5,600 retweets and 65,100 likes in one week (shown below, left).

Various Examples

Templates

Search Interest

External References