Editor's Note: This entry contains spoilers for Avengers: Endgame; read at your own caution.

About

"Gone, Reduced to Ashes" is a memorable quote uttered by the character Thanos in the 2019 Marvel superhero film Avengers: Endgame. Online people have used the image as a reaction image macro to express feelings of loss.

Origin

On April 26th, 2019, the film Avengers: Endgame was released in the United States.^[1] In the film, the Avengers confront the character Thanos about the powerful Infinity Stones, which could bring back the fallen, whom Thanos killed in Avengers: Infinity War. Thanos tells them that the stones are "gone. Reduced to ashes."^[2]

On May 2nd, iFunny ^[3] user dudewat77 posted an image Thanos with the quote as a subtitle (shown below).

Spread

Four days later, Redditor ^[4] TheDude_125 posted an image of Thanos dying at the end of the film and used the line as the caption in the /r/MemeEconomy subreddit (shown below, left). They captioned the image "INVEST TODAY in this all new thanos breath taking of a meme ! Example: Mom: where did the burritos go? Me."

On May 20th, using the image from the /r/MemeEconomy post, Facebook ^[5] user DankMemesGang posted the format with a caption about eating shredded cheese. The post received more than 4,600 reactions, 1,400 comments and 1,100 shares in less than two weeks (shown below, center).

On May 31st, Redditor^[6] pinnnyskenis posted a variation of the meme in the /r/me_irl. They captioned the photo, "Mom:*covers face playing peekaboo* Where did mommy go?" The post received more than 12,000 points (97% upvoted) and 30 comments (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Templates

Search Interest

External References