Guy Pointing a Gun at Elon Musk
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About
Guy Pointing a Gun at Elon Musk or Elon Musk's Assassination Photoshop refers to a viral photograph of Elon Musk arriving at Ed Sullivan Theater in New York photoshopped as a POV of a person pointing a revolver at Musk. The image has been used as a reply to Elon Musk's posts on X / Twitter since 2022 and inspired various caption memes and edits over the following years.
Origin
On September 9th, 2015, photographer Taylor Hill uploaded several photographs of entrepreneur and billionaire Elon Musk arriving at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert at Ed Sullivan Theater in New York City to Getty Images[1] (photograph shown below, left).
On April 25th, 2022, the X[2] / Twitter meme account @ExtremeBlitz__ posted an edited version of the photograph, photoshopped as a POV of a person pointing a revolver at Elon Musk in an assassination attempt (authorship unconfirmed, edit shown below, center). The post was paired with a version of the Amharic Curse copypasta and received over 130 reposts and 2,000 likes in two years (shown below, right).
Spread
The image first achieved recognition in late October 2022 after X[3] / Twitter user @jaubreyYT used it on October 28th to quote Elon Musk's "Comedy is now legal on Twitter" post, gaining over 830 reposts and 16,000 likes in two years (shown below, left). On October 30th, 2022, X[4] user @MinJiLee69 posted a since-removed caption meme that received over 5,900 reposts and 35,300 likes prior to deletion (shown below, right).
The image maintained its prevalence throughout 2023. Several edits of the image were circulated around this timeframe. For example, on June 21st, 2023, X[5] user @WILLIESUEDE posted an edit in which the gun was replaced with a pointed hand and the caption "CIS" was added, replying to Musk's 'CIS is a slur' controversy. The post (shown below, left) received over 100 reposts and 1,000 likes in nine months. Since July 2023, a Cruelty Squad edit of the image created by an unknown user was widely circulated[6][7] (shown below, right).
On December 10th, 2023, X[8] user @welegi posted a restored version of the meme with the deep-fried effect removed.
Various Examples
Templates
Search Interest
External References
[1] Getty Images – Celebrities Visit 'The Late Show With Stephen Colbert'
[2] X – @extremeblitz__
[3] X – @jaubreyYT
[4] X – @MinJiLee69
[5] X – @WILLIESUEDE
[6] X – @CatgirlAnarcho
[7] Tumblr – an-eccentric-devil
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Top Comments
RANman HOTD
Mar 28, 2024 at 08:18PM EDT
Timey16
Mar 29, 2024 at 02:54AM EDT in reply to