About

"Fans Explaining" Montages, also known as "The State of Fans" Montages and "Fans When" Montages, refers to a series of humorous fandom generalization montages that poke fun at fans of several franchises within a larger medium, such as anime or retro FPS games. The montages are usually set to the opening theme of either The Powerpuff Girls or What's New, Scooby-Doo? In May 2022, the format regained virality online under the name X Slander.

Origin

On March 9th, 2021, Twitter^[1] user @OnePunchDio posted a montage of several fandom generalization memes set to the opening theme of The Powerpuff Girls animated series. The video included GIF captions based on Thank God for My Reefer, Ibai Llanos Explaining Things and other viral videos and poked fun at fans of One Piece, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Attack on Titan and other popular anime titles. This original upload (shown below) received 470 views, 30 retweets and 75 likes in three weeks.

The current state of Anime Fans pic.twitter.com/Xk0dCCJV6g

— DioWhosAHeroForFun (@OnePunchDio) March 9, 2021

Spread

In the following days, the post received viral spread online through reposts on social media. A March 10th reupload on iFunny^[2] gained 580 smiles. March 13th and March 17th reuploads on Instagram^[3] and Twitter^[4] gained over 40,000 views and 14,600 likes and 2,300 upvotes, respectively.

On March 22nd, 2021, the Twitter^[5] account Images with Deltarune Music posted an altered version of the video with the music replaced with tracks from the Deltarune soundtrack. The video gained over 24,500 views in one week.

On March 22nd, 2021, @OnePunchDio^[6] posted a follow-up meme that used the same structure as the original. The video (shown below) gained over 600 views, 20 retweets and 60 likes.

Anime Fans: Part 2 pic.twitter.com/nQ4c0jQ7gL

— DioWhosAHeroForFun (@OnePunchDio) March 23, 2021

On March 23rd, Instagram^[7] user a11iens reposted the meme, with the reupload gaining over 17,000 views and 3,700 likes in one week. A March 27th repost by Twitter^[8] account @TheFunny_mp4 gained over 152,000 views in four days.

The two original posts inspired similar memes about various fandoms. Within the format, users poked fun at fans of several franchises within a certain genre or otherwise united. For example, on March 23rd, 2021, YouTube^[9] user BK4 posted a meme about fans of the Gran Turismo series, which gained over 65,000 views in one week (shown below).

Slander Memes

The format is also known as Slander Memes, which refers to a series of memes about slandering based on stereotypes. This style of format is typically about making fun of things such as fandoms, countries and video games revolved around pop culture. For example, on June 24th, 2021, YouTuber^[10] GabLikesFrogs uploaded a video titled "Country Slander (DARK HUMOR)." In the video, it shows various slanders to some countries. The video received more than 1 million views in 10 months (shown below, left). On May 7th, 2022, YouTuber^[11] Soopkrz uploaded a similar format of the video. It received more than 1.4 million views in two weeks (shown below, right).

On August 17th, 2021, YouTuber^[12] Tutili uploaded the same format about Roblox. It received 380,000 views in nine months (shown below, left). On December 8th, 2021, YouTuber^[13] Backrow Bandits uploaded a video titled "Mobile legends Slander memes." The video received more than 122,000 views in five months (shown below, right).

Related Memes

Fandom Generalization Memes

Fandom Generalization Memes refers to a series of memes, particularly GIF captions, which ascribe various false or exaggerated traits and behaviors to fans of various franchises. First popularized on iFunny in August 2019, the format is best known for memes about JoJo's Bizarre Adventure's fans' affinity for "unsucked cocks."

Various Examples

pic.twitter.com/8aK0eNcuAC

— Gay Bitch (@Novos__) March 26, 2021

pic.twitter.com/03HZTBJ0p1

— foosle🗿🚬 (@fooslefoosle) March 30, 2021

Search Interest

External References