About

The r/Cigars Man or Black Guy With Cigar, also known as Black Guy Smoking a Cigar, refers to a series of highly-edited selfies of a Black man smoking a cigar posted by Redditor Physical_Usual581 to the /r/cigars and /r/cigar_refuge subreddits from 2021 to 2023. He's also known on Instagram under his real name Adam Van Landingham III on the account @adam_the_pufferator. Landingham III's photos gained memetic spread predominantly starting in late 2022 and continuing into 2023, gaining traction as image macros that "go hard" on TikTok and iFunny, among other platforms, where meme creators added captions. One image of Landingham III smoking a purple cigar gained significant usage going into 2023. In late 2023, a rumor spread on X that the Black Guy With Cigar was Playboi Carti's bodyguard, known as JIZZLE THE GOD (@jizzthegod_) on Instagram, however, the claim is unfounded.

Origin

Adam Van Landingham III, known as the Black Guy With Cigar, first posted a selfie to Instagram^[1] on October 22nd, 2021, gaining 16 likes in two years (shown below, left). Soon after, on October 31st, 2021, he shared his first post to Reddit on his profile Physical_Usual581 to the /r/cigars^[2] subreddit. He posted his first selfie to /r/cigars^[3] on November 1st, 2021 (shown below, right).

On December 20th, 2021, Landingham III posted a selfie to /r/cigars^[4] that was his first viral post on social media, captioned, "Celebrating my sons graduation with one of my favorite stogies, the Oliva Serie V Melanio, my first University Graduate!!!" The post received roughly 9,000 upvotes in two years (shown below).

Spread

Going into 2022, Landingham III continued to upload selfies to /r/cigars., however, engagement on his images spiked following an August 6th, 2022, post from Tumblr^[5] user eviethekiwi, who captioned his aforementioned /r/cigars^[4] selfie, "went on r/cigars for some reason and found the hardest pic in existence," gaining roughly 22,100 notes in a year (shown below, left). His posts then started to gain thousands of upvotes consistently, such as one /r/cigars^[6] post on Spetember 7th, 2022, which gained roughly 2,000 upvotes in a year (shown below, right).

On August 28th, 2022, he posted a selfie to /r/cigars^[7] which gained over 250 upvotes in a year (shown below, left). The photo gained viral reposts in the weeks that followed, such as one to /r/196^[8] on September 8th, 2022, which gained roughly 3,800 upvotes in a year. Also on September 8th, Redditor SpunkyBall posted an edit of the image to /r/FeelFreeToScreenshot^[9] which made the cigar purple, gaining over 430 upvotes in a year (shown below, right).

The purple edit of the image then gained memetic usage, such as in a meme shared by Instagram^[10] user @epicjoko on September 17th, 2022, who added Impact captions reading, "WHEN THEY SLEEPIN ON YOU TUCK 'EM IN," gaining roughly 55,100 likes in a year (shown below).

Memes using Landingham III's images continued to surface online going into 2023, evident in threads on 4chan ^[11] and iFunny,^[12] among other websites.

Playboi Carti's Bodyguard Rumor

On September 5th, 2023, X^[13] user @unseenopium shared a screenshot of post from Instagram^[14] user @jizzlethegod_ who was allegedly one of rapper Playboi Carti's bodyguards. @unseenopium purported that he was the same guy in the "tiktok cigar guy meme," however, the claim is untrue. Regardless, the post gained roughly 8,100 likes in two days (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References