About

Back of the Christmas Tree refers to a series of memes which parody the notion that people tend to leave the backside of their Christmas trees less decorated than the front. The format gained popularity on Reddit in early December 2019.

Origin

On December 5th, 2019, Redditor 8eloZer0 posted a meme based on the notion that the front of the Christmas tree is usually more decorated and presentable than its back side (shown below).^[1] The meme gained over 29,900 upvotes in /r/memes subreddit in five days.

Spread

In the following days, more memes based on the notion were posted on Reddit, primarily in mainstream meme communities such as /r/memes and /r/dankmemes, also spreading to Facebook.^[2] For example, a December 5th, 2019, Homer Simpson's Back Fat post by Redditor Legendariummc received over 1,300 upvotes in /r/memes (shown below, left).^[3] A December 8th Rick and Morty post by Redditor Pepix25 received over 23,500 upvotes in /r/memes in two days (shown below right).^[4]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References