Ferrothorn

About

Ferrothorn is a Pokémon best known online for its presence in competitive Pokémon as a strong defensive and hazard setting Pokémon, best suited for countering other team's offensive threats through attrition, aka "Stall" tactics. This has led to the creation of memes expressing annoyance with the Pokémon.

Origin

Ferrothorn was introduced in Pokémon Black and White, first released in Japan on September 18th, 2010. It is a Grass and Steel type.^[1] It would become a popular Pokémon in competitive Pokémon due to learning moves like Spikes and Stealth Rock (which harm Pokémon that switch into battle), Leech Seed (which drains an opposing Pokémon's health each turn) and having the ability Iron Barbs, which deals damage to any Pokémon that harms it with a physical move.^[2] On April 24th, 2022, YouTube account False Swipe Gaming posted a retrospective on Ferrothorn's competitive usage, covering the assets that helped the Pokémon become a staple in the competitive scene, gaining over 1.1 million views in eighteen months.

Spread

Ferrothorn quickly began growing into a competitive threat and early memes about the Pokémon date back to 2013. Early memes centering around Ferrothorn were image macros and trollface memes (examples from Quickmeme shown below).

Over the following years, memes about Ferrothorn continued to center around the Pokémon's competitive viability. For example, on February 17th, 2020, Redditor Moggyo posted a Ferrothorn-related meme in /r/pokemon,^[3] gaining over 40 points in nearly four years (shown below, left). On August 14th, 2022. Redditor MudkipNerd posted a Ferrothorn meme in /r/stunfisk,^[4] gaining over 560 points in one year (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References