About

Guess the Country By Looking at One Image refers to an image macro format on Reddit in which you are asked to guess the name of a country with only a given image, or sometimes a word, as the hint. The image or word is often stereotypical to one or more countries, and often purposefully offensive. The trend began in late August 2021, spreading to other platforms in the following days.

Origin

On August 26th, 2021, Redditor u/SidneyRL posted an image macro to /r/memes^[1] reading "Guess a country name by looking at one image" with an image of a shotgun underneath, gaining over 38,900 upvotes in a day (shown below). This is the earliest known meme following the format.

Spread

The trend spread quickly over the following day, with numerous examples seeing success on Reddit. For example, on August 26th, 2021, Redditor u/joshua-esaw posted a version of the meme with a knife image to /r/dankmemes,^[2] gaining over 6,100 upvotes in a day (shown below, left). On August 27th, Redditor u/X_Varian posted a version to /r/memes,^[3] gaining over 5,400 upvotes in under a day (shown below, right).

The format has also spread to Instagram^[4][5] via reposts of Reddit memes.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References