About

Confused Gandalf refers to an image macro series featuring a picture of the character Gandalf from a scene in the 2001 film The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, which is typically used as a reaction image to convey feelings of uncertainty or unfamiliarity.

Origin

In the 2001 film Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Gandalf remarks that he has "no memory of this place" while passing through the Mines of Moria (shown below).

On November 30th, 2011, Redditor jonatfuckdotorg posted a 3-pane image macro of the scene with the caption "I have no memory of this place" in a post titled "Back in the office the morning after the holiday break" (shown below). Prior to being archived, the post gained over 1,500 votes (95% upvoted) and 70 comments on the /r/funny^[1] subreddit.

Spread

On Reddit, the image macro has been often used to indicate one's confusion upon encountering a high-volume influx of posts related to a trending topic after it has already peaked or during its plateau. On December 8th, 2011, Redditor javabrewer posted an edited version of the three-pane image macro with the caption “I have no memory of this codebase” to /r/funny,^[2] where it garnered more than 1,000 votes (90% upvoted) and 60 comments before it was archived (shown below, left). On July 1st, 2012, Redditor Alamlion posted the original Confused Gandalf image macro in a post titled “How I felt as a kid when my mom cleaned my room.”^[4] On September 13th, Redditor sidjun posted a mashup of Confused Gandalf with "Am I the Only One Around Here" to /r/AdviceAnimals^[6] (shown below, right).

On March 16th, 2013, several Redditors posted more than a dozen of Confused Gandalf image macros with the question "safe?" in response to a flurry of posts and in-jokes about The Mysterious Vault that appeared on the site's frontpage (shown below).

On March 20th, Tumblr^[7] user memecenterz posted a Confused Gandalf image macro mocking the use of quiet music in film to build tension (shown below, left). In May 2013, a page for “Confused Gandalf” was created on Quickmeme.^[5] On February 6th, 2014, Redditor Ashwalla submitted a Confused Gandalf image macro with the caption “Did I pay my bills?” to /r/AdviceAnimals^[3] (shown below, right). Before the post was archived, it received over 3,000 votes (95% upvoted) and 500 comments.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External references