About

A Guillotine is an execution apparatus built to efficiently carry out executions by beheading. Though similar execution machines could be found in the middle ages, the guillotine is widely associated with the 18th century French Revolution, during which, members of the French noble class were beheaded.^[11] In memes, guillotines are typically used in the discussion of class wars and references to the apparatus are made in reaction to tone-deaf actions or statements from those with a high income.

Origin

Although the name "guillotine" dates back to 18th century France, many netizens began referring to the apparatus in memes in the 2000s. On October 13th, 2011, the earliest known meme involving the guillotine was posted to Smosh^[1] in the list "The Best of Troll Dad" (shown below).

Spread

On July 10th, 2017, Redditor villageelliot posted a comic of Pepe getting beheaded to r/MemeEconomy^[2] and garnered over 190 points (99% upvoted) in three years (shown below, left). On February 15th, 2019, Redditor SkeletalRealty posted to r/OutofTheLoop^[9] about the rise in posting guillotines in response to capitalist tweets. The post gained over 140 points (89% upvoted) in a year. On April 15, the Facebook^[7] group "Guillotine Memes Bring Communist Dreams" was created and accumulated over 10,100 followers in a year. In November 2019, Teen Vogue^[6] published an article on the use of guillotines on Twitter. On March 3rd, 2020, Redditor Matsk1 posted a meme comparing the illusion of a severed head with the French revolution to r/dankmemes^[3] and received over 74,300 points (96% upvoted) in a month (shown below, right).

On April 8th, Twitter user and She-Ra voice actor @aimeecarrero^[10] tweeted "Death threats from “fans” are super fun!" and continued by replying, "She’s so brave to block me. Here is the tweet in case she deletes it:" (shown below). The tweet garnered 100 likes and included a screenshot of @LesbianBabadook's meme which they did not tag @aimeecarrero in. The guillotine meme and Carrero's reaction sparked the hashtags and controversy #IStandWithLesbianBabdook.

On April 8th, @notallbhas^[4] tweeted an image of Bernie Sanders drawing a guillotine labeled "Plan C" on a whiteboard with the caption, "Bernie Sanders is already my president" referring to Sanders' concentration on working class citizens (shown below, left). The tweet gained over 280 likes in six days. The next day, Twitter user @jonas_nordqvist^[5] tweeted, "Anyone got a spare guillotine?" in reaction to Ellen DeGeneres calling her mansion a jail (shown below, right). In April 2020, StayHipp^[8] published an article on guillotine memes.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References