About

Alto Ahí Pana refers to a series of Spanish image macro memes popularized on Facebook in early 2022 where users decided between two reactions in order to participate in a poll. The catchphrase "Alto Ahí Pana" roughly translates to "Stop right there, pal" in English.

Origin

The phrase "Alto Ahí Pana" had been used in memes on Facebook as early as late 2020. For instance, the first image macro to lead with the phrase within its caption was posted on September 19th, 2020, by Facebook^[1] page This is the geek, who over the course of two years received over 190 shares. The meme used an image of Darth Vader from Star Wars (shown below).

Spread

On October 6th, 2020, the Facebook^[2] meme page C H I N G A T U M A D R E Curni lof used the phrase in a meme that captioned an image of Kurt Cobain pointing a gun at the viewer and referenced Zoom, earning over 130 reactions in two years (shown below, left). On March 16th, 2021, the Facebook^[3] page Fer Tijerina – Ferkiot posted a meme that again used "Alto Ahí Pana" in its caption. The meme referenced weapons within the Halo video game series, prompting the viewer to choose a weapon by reacting with a specific, emoji reaction. Over the course of one year, the meme earned roughly 9,000 reactions (shown below, right).

On January 6th, 2022, the official Facebook^[4] page of Papuchos, a Mexico-based fast-food chain, posted a version of a "Alto Ahí Pana" Facebook reaction poll that would later become the lasting template going forward. Over the course of two months, the image received over 145 reactions (shown below).

The template started to represent more colloquial topics going into the rest of 2022. For instance, on January 10th, 2022, Facebook^[5] page El Incondicional posted a version that made its followers decide between Cheetos and Takis, earning roughly 8,600 reactions in two months (shown below, left). On January 28th, 2022, Facebook^[6] page El Shitposting Del José José made a post that compared two dinosaurs, earning roughly 5,200 reactions in two months (shown below, right).

Facebook page El Shitposting Del José José continued to be the main proponent of the template going into February and March 2022, with one of their posts^[7] featuring porn actress Mia Khalifa receiving roughly 1.6 million reactions in three days after being posted on March 21st (shown below).

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References