But I Got The Van

About

"But I Got the Van" is a memorable quote uttered by the character Luis in the 2015 Marvel superhero film Ant-Man. Online, a multi-panel image macro comprised of screenshots of Luis reciting the dialogue leading up to the line has been used in a series of jokes about optimism in the face of intense adversity.

Origin

On July 17th, 2015, Marvel released the film Ant-Man in the United States. In the film, the character Luis gives the character Scott Lang (portrayed by Michael Peña and Paul Rudd, respectively) a ride home from prison. On the drive, they have the following conversation.^[1]

Scott Lang: Hey, how's your girl, man?
Luis: Ah, she left me.
Scott Lang: Oh.
Luis: And my mom died too. And my dad got deported. But I got the van!

On January 18th, 2016, YouTuber Solicity Transcendence shared the scene. The post received more than 133,000 views in less than five years (shown below).

Spread

The scene became a fan favorite over the next year. On May 23rd, 2016, Instagram ^[2] user @enebriated shared a multi-panel image of the scene and received more than 8,600 likes in less than four years (shown below, left).

Over time, the scene inspired a series of memes about optimism. For example, on January 24th, 2020, Redditor ^[3] h_r_h_15 shared a variation of I see this as an absolute win (shown below, center).

Months later, on March 18th, Redditor^[4] beergeek92 shared a variation about the the events of 2020. In the meme, Luis mentions the death of Kobe Bryant, the Australian brushfire, the coronavirus outbreak and 420 Month. The post received more than 23,000 points (96% upvoted) and 300 comments in less than one month (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Not available.

External References