About

Goats Are Like Mushrooms is a copypasta used frequently as the caption to an image macro meme of the Operation Kinder, sometimes known as "Death Child" or "Victor," with Osama bin Laden's beard edited on to his chin. The meme, which is intentionally nonsensical, reads: "Goats are like mushrooms, if you shoot a duck, I'm scared of toasters."

Origin

The origin of the meme is unknown. A Redditor ^[1] who later deleted their account published the earliest available version of the meme on the /r/funny subreddit on February 29th, 2012, claiming to have found it on 4chan's /b/ messageboard. The post received more than 1,100 points (87% upvoted) and 495 comments in less than a decade (shown below).

Spread

Over the next decade, the phrase continued to spread online. For example, on June 6th, 2014, Twitter^[2] account @SeniorQuotesLOL shared an image that featured a man named Colby Cravens claiming the phrase to be his "life motto" (shown below, left).

The following day, Twitter^[3] user @MatthewEspinose tweeted, "Goats are like mushrooms, if you shoot a duck, I'm scared of toasters." The post received more than 20,000 likes and 6,900 retweets in less than six years (shown below, right).

On May 22nd, 2018, Twitter^[4] user @priscizavalaa tweeted a photograph of a high school yearbook in which a student uses the quote. The post received more than 28,000 likes and 9,200 retweets in less than three years (shown below). The following year, the image was shared on the /r/iamverrandom subreddit,^[5] where it received more than 18,000 points (97% upvoted) and 550 comments in less than one year.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References