About

Are You Sure This Will Help Us Sell More Burgers? is a four-panel comic by artist StoneToss in which a man proposes an advertisement for a burger company depicting a kiss between people of different races, with his manager questioning whether the ad would help sell burgers. The comic has since gained popularity in memes in which users highlight something deviating from its original purpose, as well as in anti-memes.

Origin

On October 4th, 2018, comic artist StoneToss posted a four-panel comic titled "Burgar Kang" to his website^[1] and Twitter. In the comic, a man presents an ad campaign for a burger company, with the proposed advertisement depicting a kiss between people of different races. In the third panel, the manager questions whether the ad would be able to help the company sell burgers, with the man appearing to be surprised by this goal.

Spread

The exact first instance of use of the image as meme template is unknown. The earliest discovered edit of the comic was posted^[2] prior to February 10th, 2019, in /r/antifastonetoss subreddit (post no longer available; shown below, left). On February 14th, 2019, an unknown user posted^[3] another edit of the comic, gaining over 580 upvotes in the subreddit in six months (shown below, right).

Through 2019 and 2020, the comic saw moderate use online, primarily being used to highlight ad campaigns perceiving deviating from the purpose of increasing the sales of the product in favor of promoting a certain agenda. For example, on February 20th, 2019, an unknown 9GAG^[4] user posted a Captain Marvel meme that received over 2,200 points in two years (shown below). On March 16th, 2019, iFunny^[5] user 32RH posted a meme poking fun at a Buffalo Wild Wings commercial that received over 110 smiles in two years. On April 19th, 2020, Redditor^[6] Swagfag9000 posted a Political Compass meme that gained over 2,800 upvotes in six months (shown below, right).

The phrase "are you sure this will help us sell burgers" saw use online outside of the meme format; for example, on January 26th, 2020, Twitter^[7] user @8EyedEel posted a GigaChad meme that gained over 390 retweets and 1,700 likes and was widely circulated online in the following weeks (shown below).

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References