About

Fish Screaming "WAR", sometimes known as War Fish, refers to an image macro of an animatronic fish with human-like teeth screaming "WAR" in all-caps using Impact font, commonly paired in viral videos with a song from the anime Attack on Titan / Shingeki No Kyojin. Although the photograph of the fish dates back to 2015, it wasn't paired with the word "WAR" until late 2020 on iFunny. It circulated websites like Funnyjunk and 4chan going into 2021 and became a notable exploitable in 2022 regarding the Russia-Ukraine conflict, particularly in late February during the invasion.

Origin

As a precursor, the photograph of the animatronic fish with teeth originally dates back to September 2009,^[1] additionally appearing in Crappy Taxidermy ^[13] image banks in October of that year. The fish is sporting a pair of dentures in the photograph. It was used in memes on Reddit^[2] circulating cursed image discourse from 2016 to 2019.

It wasn't until November 5th, 2020, that iFunny^[3] user AudibleSes captioned the fish screaming with "WAR," written with all-caps and Impact font. The meme (shown below) earned roughly 1,500 smiles over the course of a year and a half.

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Spread

On November 11th, 2020, the meme above was shared to Funnyjunk^[4] by a user named wcpapier, who earned 16 upvotes in a year and a half. The fish screaming "WAR" was also used on 4chan's /pol/ ^[5] messageboard, starting on March 20th, 2021.

Before its use on /pol/, however, a video was shared on December 23rd, 2020, by iFunnyer^[6] Requiem that was a Kinemaster edit of stills and clips from Attack on Titan, using the song "My War" ^[7] by Shinsei Kamattechan taken from season four of the anime. The video (shown below, left) received over 500 smiles in fourteen months.

Two weeks later, on January 6th, 2021, the original screaming fish image macro was reposted by iFunnier^[8] New_California_Republic, most likely in reference to the January 6th, 2021, storming of the United States Capitol. The repost earned roughly 1,500 smiles in one year. The next day, on January 7th, iFunnier^[9] Swaelee used the Attack on Titan "My War" song in the background of the meme, earning roughly 1,500 smiles over the course of one year (shown below, right).

More iFunniers caught onto the trend going into the rest of January 2021. For instance, on January 10th, iFunnier^[10] Ascaso posted their own version of the meme, using a different song from Attack on Titan, earning roughly 1,800 smiles for it over the course of one year (shown below).

The meme kept seeing usage going into the rest of 2021 but picked up again in large following Russia's increasing pressure and ultimate invasion of Ukraine in January and February 2022. For instance, iFunnier^[11] NatSaxon posted a video on February 21st, 2022, which earned roughly 1,400 smiles in four days (shown below, left). On February 23rd, 2022, iFunnier^[12] GeronimosGhost posted a version that directly referenced Russia's invasion of eastern Ukraine, earning roughly 1,500 smiles in less than 24 hours (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

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External References