Gangster vs. Moron

About

Gangster vs. Moron refers to a side-by-side comparison image showing Al Capone on the left and a man in a large hoody and baggy pants on the right with traits about each listed underneath, meant to highlight the difference between classic gangsters and modern gangsters, also known as gangstas. The image, originally labeled Gangster vs. D Bag, was first uploaded to Reddit in 2015 and started to see use as an exploitable over the following years with people replacing the images and listed traits to represent new subjects as the "gangster" and "moron."

Origin

On August 9th, 2015, Redditor u/Hellshield posted a meme to /r/terriblefacebookmemes^[1] titled "Gangster vs D Bag" showing a side-by-side comparison of gangster Al Capone and a man in a baggy red hoody and loose jeans, meant to represent a modern gangster. A list of traits under Al Capone reads, "Dressed Proper, Polite to Women, Loves His Mother, Will actually kill you," while the list of traits under the modern gangster simply reads, "yeah……" (shown below). This is the earliest known upload of the meme. On December 7th, the meme was posted to 9GAG,^[5] gaining over 38,000 upvotes in five years.

On January 3rd, 2016, Redditor u/nlabodin posted a photoshopped version of the image to /r/forwardsfromgrandma^[4] replacing "d bag" with "moron" and replacing the moron's traits with a list reading, "Dresses Scummy, Rude to Women, No Respect, Big Talker" in contrast to the traits of Al Capone (shown below).

Spread

On September 7th, 2021, Instagram^[2] page @cloakerson posted a photoshopped version of the image replacing Al Capone with a capybara and the moron with a fish, gaining over 5,700 likes in two days (shown below, left). On September 8th, Instagram^[3] page @hugeplateofketchup8 posted a new photoshop replacing the gangster with a Roomba and the moron with a cat, gaining over 4,000 likes in a day (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References