About

Focus Group Man is an unnamed character from the Netflix sketch comedy series I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson, played by actor Ruben Rabasa. The sketch depicts the character presenting increasingly absurd and negative ideas in a focus group for a new model of car. The character reacts with scorn and insults when challenged, which wins him support until the entire group cheers for him as he dabs and flips a bottle. Lines from the sketch, especially "You have no good car ideas" and "Oh my god, he admit it!," became catchphrases following the show's premiere in 2019. Subtitled images of the character were also used as reaction images on Twitter and other sites.

Origin

I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson premiered on April 23rd, 2019, on Netflix. The sketch "Focus Group" was officially uploaded to YouTube and Twitter nine days later on May 2nd, bringing prominence and popularity to the sketch, as well as the central character dubbed the "Focus Group Man" (seen below).

It is unknown who first used the character or catchphrase in a meme, but various examples began appearing as early as May 2019 shortly after the episode was released. One such example was posted on May 4th, 2019, by Instagram^[6] user memetides depicting a fake text conversation, receiving nearly 400 likes in two years (shown below).

Spread

Over the summer and fall of 2019, quoting Focus Group Man became steadily more widespread. On May 30th, journalist Dave Itzkoff received over 1,000 retweets in roughly two years when he used an image of the character saying "Oh my god, he admit it!" in response to Donald Trump tweeting "I had nothing to do with Russia helping me get elected" (seen below).^[1]

pic.twitter.com/6g8DvfMCe0

— Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) May 30, 2019

Ruben Rabasa, the actor who played Focus Group Man, was interviewed by Vulture in November. The interviewer, Jamie Loftus, told Rabasa "You're a meme now."^[2] The video was later shared to Vulture's YouTube channel on November 12th, 2019, receiving over 33,000 views and 500 likes (seen below).

In December, Vulture also published an oral history of the sketch, interviewing Rabasa, director Akiva Schaffer, and creators and writers Tim Robinson and Zach Kanin. In the introduction, Rabasa was called "one of the most memed men of 2019."^[3]

Focus Group Man was cited on multiple lists of the year's best memes, by publications including The Guardian^[4] and The Ringer.^[5]

Various Examples

Search Interest

References