About

Don't Dead Open Inside is a trope which involves incorrect interpretation of various writings and labels which include two or more lines of text and have no clear way to tell the order in which the words should be read. The name "Don't Dead Open Inside" is based on a promotional poster for The Walking Dead TV series which features one of the best recognized examples of the trope in popular culture.

Origin

On July 2nd, 2010, a Comic-Con poster for The Walking Dead TV series was revealed.^[1][2] The poster featured a photograph of a double door with the words "Don't Open" written on the left leaf and "Dead Inside" written on the right leaf, which should be interpreted "Don't open, dead inside" if read in the correct order. However, when read line by line instead, the writing on the door reads "Don't dead open inside."

On August 24th, 2010, the trailer for the series premiered. ^[3]On October 31st, 2010, episode one "Days Gone Bye" of the post-apocalyptic horror TV series The Walking Dead premiered in the United States.^[4] In both the trailer and the episode, the door with the writing is shown (scene shown below).

Spread

In the days following the reveal of the poster, several users on Twitter wrote that the writing on the door can be interpreted as "Don't dead, open inside."^[5][6] More similar posts were made following the premiere of the trailer in August 2010 and the first episode of the show in October 2010.^[7]

In the following years, the memes based on the joke were made, with Know Your Meme user irish_swede archiving one such example on March 12, 2013 (shown below).^[8]

In the following years, multiple examples of the trope were posted in /r/CrappyDesign subreddit.^[9] On May 17th, 2014, subreddit /r/dontdeadopeninside was created with the purpose of collecting examples of the trope in advertising, design and popular culture (notable posts shown below).^[10] As of September 12th, 2019, the community had over 500,000 subscribers.

Floating Boy Chasing Running Boy Variations

On September 9th, 2019, Redditor bode_nelson used a labeled Floating Boy Chasing Running Boy meme as a humorous illustration for a Don't Dead Open Inside image.^[11] The post gained over 64,100 upvotes in /r/dankmemes subreddit in three days (shown below).

In the following days, more two-panel Floating Boy Chasing Running Boy / Don't Dead Open Inside mashup memes with incorrectly interpreted label chasing the correct variation were posted in major meme subreddits (examples shown below).^[12][13]

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References