About

Chick / Duck With Knife refers to an image of a plush yellow bird, assumed to either be a chick or duck, holding a plastic knife. The image is used in image macros, usually as a wholesome meme.

Origin

On August 22nd, 2016, @reddaIles tweeted,^[1] "When ur soft but someone hurts ur friends" along with an image of a plush yellow bird holding a toy knife forward as if to defend itself, garnering over 8,600 likes and 7,400 retweets in 4 years (shown below). This is the earliest known upload of the image.

Occasionally, commenters on posts featuring the duck wonder where they can purchase it. On August 25th, 2018, u/Banananna6 made a post to /r/HelpMeFind^[2] searching for a source to purchase the duck for, however, one has not been found. Commenters suspect the plush is not an actual product, rather a separate children's duck toy with a plastic knife toy resting in its arm.

Spread

The meme slowly caught on, receiving significant attention in 2017 on Tumblr. On April 13th, 2017, @quiiz uploaded a Persona 5 Battle Menu Parody featuring the chick with a knife to Tumblr,^[3] garnering over 1,400 notes in 3 years (shown below, left). On April 27th, @jestersexual uploaded an image macro featuring the chick to Tumblr,^[4] garnering over 15,000 notes in a comparable span of time (shown below, right).

On October 5th, 2018, @Nickro666 uploaded a Dark Souls photoshop using the duck to Twitter,^[5] garnering over 2,900 likes and 920 retweets in roughly 2 years (shown below, left). On April 8th, 2019, /u/Saruman135 uploaded an image macro of the duck with the text, "When you're mad at your man but he thinks ur cute and doesn't take you seriously" to /r/memes^[6] garnering over 6,100 upvotes in just under 2 years (shown below, right).

The meme has become most closely related to wholesome memes over time. On May 7th, 2020, /u/j3hadipi3 posted a wholesome meme using the image to /r/memes,^[8] garnering over 33,000 upvotes in 8 months (shown below, left). On May 20th, /u/Johnkabe uploaded another image macro of the duck with a knife to /r/WholesomeMemes,^[7] garnering over 2,900 upvotes in a comparable span of time (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References