About

Buff Brian Griffin With Abs Smoking Against a Wall is an exploitable image macro of a muscular Brian Griffin from Family Guy smoking while dramatically leaning against a wall. The image comes from the 2019 episode "Disney's The Reboot" and became the subject of memes as early as March 2020, often used alongside jokes about feeling cool.

Origin

On October 20th, 2019, Family Guy season 18 episode four, titled "Disney's The Reboot," aired in which three potential reboots of the show are presented to viewers that parody reboots in general. In one scene, a reboot titled "The Q," parodying shows like Riverdale, is shown, including a scene in which a muscular Brian coolly smokes against a wall (shown below).

The earliest known use of the image of Brian as a meme was posted by Twitter^[1] user @shutyourhell on March 25th, 2020, in response to a tweet reading, "been feeling like coronavirus lately the way nobody want me," applying the same quote to the image, garnering around five likes in three years (shown below). It was reposted by Tumblr^[2] user murdernachos on August 13th, garnering around 60 notes in the same span of time.

Spread

The meme spread over the following years. On May 19th, 2021, Instagram^[5] user your.residential.goth.gf posted a version of the meme that gained over 6,600 likes in two years and gained viral spread through reposts (shown below, left). On November 19th, 2022, Twitter^[3] user @snarlsband posted the image, writing, "me in public listening to the coolest song ever and no one even knows," garnering over 98,700 likes in seven months (shown below, right).

On December 21st, 2022, TikToker^[4] @notshinju posted a capture of a now-deleted Reddit meme using the image, garnering over 4.5 million views in six months (shown below).

Template

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References