Epic Duck / TEH EPIK DUCK IS COMING!!!

About

Epic Duck is a rubber duck that was added to the multiplayer sandbox video game Roblox as a part of the 2009 April Fools' day. As the Epic Duck achieved widespread meme recognition within the Roblox community, it inspired creation of games and clothes, with the developers recognizing the meme with "TEH EPIK DUCK IS COMING!!!" quick chat option. In 2021 and 2022, "THE EPIC DUCK IS COMING" and "TEH EPIC DUCK IS HERE" trended on Twitter due to the spread of a self-replicating tweet referencing the meme.

Origin

On April 1st, 2009, for the 2009 April Fools' day Roblox introduced Epic Duck, a five stories tall rubber duck, to the game.^[1][2] The duck appeared as a prop in the Ultimate Paintball game. Additionally, a smaller version of the duck, Rubber Duckie, was added as a hat item (Roblox blog announcement and images shown below). The addition of the duck was preceeded by a giveout of another item that provided a hint by sometimes showing four pictures of objects first letters of which spelled out D U C and K.

Spread

At that time Epic Duck rose to become a recognized meme within the Roblox community, with creators adding the prop to their games and making Epic Duck badges. For example, on October 31st, 2009, Roblox user TigerCode released^[3] Find the Epic Duck Hidden Badges. The game was visited by over 638,000 users and favorited by 20,100 players in thirteen years (gameplay video shown below, left). On June 25th, 2020, YouTuber^[4] Fave posted a meme review video for Epic Duck that gained over 146,000 views in two years (shown below, right).

Between 2009 and 2015, Roblox occasionally added items referencing the meme, including a book hat called The Tale of EPIC Duck and an Epic Duck Racer racing helmet (examples shown below).^[2] Additionally, the LOLspeak phrase "TEH EPIK DUCK IS COMING!!!" was added by Roblox.

2021-2022 Resurgence

The meme first regained public attention in 2021, when a self-replicating tweet reading "TEH EPIC DUCK IS HERE" and containing a Breaking News edit of an image of a giant floating rubber duck, a famous sculpture.^[5] The self-replicating tweet was launched by Twitter^[6] user @Mathep11 on June 13th, 2021, with the original tweet gaining 8 retweets and over 310 likes in one year (tweet and image shown below, left and right).

On June 14th, "THE EPIC DUCK IS COMING" trended on Twitter in the United States as users shared the self-replicating tweet and made other posts referencing the meme, with other 4,000 tweets posted.^[7][8]

In early August 2022, the self-replicating tweet again resurfaced on Twitter, with users now writing "TEH EPIC DUCK IS HERE" and the phrase trending on Twitter on August 9th. For example, on August 8th, 2022, Twitter^[9] user @KungFuCutbug shared the self-replicating tweet, with the post gaining over 150 retweets and 900 likes (shown below, left). Later that day, Twitter^[10] user @SamirAhmadi_ made a tweet that gained over 380 retweets and 2,700 likes

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References