Beware of the Pipeline

About

Beware of the Pipeline refers to a series of memes based on an image depicting the gradual transition of a man into a trans woman over a period of five years between 2016 and 2021. The memes, in which immersion into various fandoms and franchises is parodied, gained popularity on Twitter in mid-July 2021.

Origin

On February 6th, 2021, artist @melanpsycholia tweeted^[1] an artwork depicting the six-year transition of their character Miles into a trans woman (shown below). The tweet gained over 950 retweets and 7,700 likes in six months.

Spread

On February 8th, Twitter^[2] user @FemboyR6S reposted the image, writing, "journey of the femboy gimmick account." The tweet gained over 160 retweets and 1,500 likes. On April 10th, 2021, Twitter^[3] user @fembomemer reposted the artwork, with the post gaining over 480 retweets and 4,400 likes. On June 20th, 2021, Redditor^[4] Nikola-Vice posted a cropped version of the image to the /r/FemboyHentai subreddit, writing, "What quarantine did to me." The post received over 5,500 upvotes in one month.

On July 14th, 2021, Twitter^[5] user @FemboyHooters4 posted a cropped, reedited version of the image captioned "Beware of the pipeline" and personal pronouns added above each year version of the character (shown below). The post, credited to Twitter user @doros3n,^[6] received nearly 1000 retweets and 10,000 likes in one week.

On July 15th, 2021, Redditor^[7] Mohd301 posted the earliest found humorous edit of the image macro to the /r/gaming subreddit, with the post failing to get traction (shown below, left). On July 16th, 2021, Twitter^[8] user @keionfolder posted a version of the meme in which titles of five anime series were added above the versions of the character, with the post gaining 240 retweets and 1,400 likes in one week (shown below, right).

In the following days, the meme format gained popularity on social media, used to parody immersion of various fandoms and franchises.

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References