Big Brother Orders / 1984 GIF

About

Big Brother Orders and 1984 GIF refer to a series of memes based on GIFs and images of the character Big Brother, played by actor Bob Flag, from the dystopian 1984 film Nineteen Eighty-Four based on George Orwell's book of the same name. In the format, various orders, usually prohibiting stupid and dangerous acts, are paired with the images as an exploitable image macro.

Origin

On October 10th, 1984, the British dystopian science fiction film Nineteen Eighty-Four, based upon George Orwell's 1949 novel of the same name, premiered.^[1] During the opening sequence, a large crowd of people is shown chanting before a large screen, with a static image of Big Brother (portrayed by Bob Flag) shown on the screen.

On December 1st, 2020, an unknown Redditor^[2] posted a Demotivational Poster that combined a GIF based on the scene captioned "Don't piss in the McDonald's sinks" with the secondary caption "Do not trust big brother, piss in the McDonald's sinks." The post received over 1,900 upvotes in the /r/okbuddyretard^[1] subreddit prior to being removed (shown below).

Spread

In the following days and weeks, the post received viral spread online. For example, on December 6th, 2020, Instagram^[3] user cyrakek_ reposted the image, with the post gaining over 27,900 likes in one year.

The post inspired a trend in which users combined orders prohibiting stupid or dangerous acts with the image of Big Brother (alternatively, Big Brother as seen in Apple's "1984" commercial) on iFunny and Reddit. For example, on December 6th, 2020, iFunny^[4] user Konzu posted a You Cannot Use The Double Gulp Cup For The Slurpee meme that received over 2,000 smiles in one year (shown below, left). On December 7th, iFunny^[5] user Soren posted a meme that gained over 2,200 smiles in the same period (shown below, center). On December 7th, Redditor^[6] CaptainBraggy posted a Keep Memes out of #general meme that gained over 5,700 upvotes in /r/okbuddyretard in six months (shown below, right).

The format's virality subsided in January 2021 but was reignited in February by a viral post by Redditor arvidsson85 submitted to the /r/okbuddyretard^[7] subreddit on February 2nd (shown below, left). The post gained over 6,900 upvotes prior to being removed, with a February 3rd repost by Twitter^[8] user @racistoniichan gaining over 2,300 retweets and 16,300 likes in eight months. On February 7th, Redditor^[9] Infernum_DCoL posted a meme that gained over 8,000 upvotes in six months in the /r/196 subreddit (shown below, right).

On Twitter, the format achieved popularity with a still image from the scene rather than a GIF. For example, on April 8th, 2021, Twitter^[10] user @LukeCorreiaVA posted a meme that gained over 80 retweets and 450 likes in six months (shown below, left). On May 12th, Twitter^[11] user @JohntheLib posted a meme about the 2021 U.S. East Coast Gas Shortage that gained over 130 retweets and 1,100 likes in five months (shown below, right).

The meme format maintained notable popularity on Twitter, Reddit and iFunny through 2021.

Various Examples

Templates

Search Interest

External References