About

Hayato refers to a still-frame from anime adaptation of Jojo Bizzare Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable. Remarkable for its unsettling appearance as well as simple caption referring to one of the side-characters of the anime, Hayato Kawajiri^[1] the image became a common exploitable among Jojo fans.

Origin

Image comes from beginning of episode 36 of the anime titled “Bites the Dust, Part 2”^[2] released December 2nd 2016. Notably this moment does not have a counterpart in manga, instead showing Hayato having his rain hat put on by Kosaku Kawajiri^[3].

Four days after initial airing Youtube user Ernest Peiris released a video called “HAYATO” (Shown below), with another similar video being released on December 10th by user Tobulance^[4]. A gif version of the moment was put on KnowYourMeme by user Blu Spy^[5] on the day of airing.

Spread

Meme wouldn’t catch on until October 4th 2018 when Reddit user u/Cannoli_Splash posted the still-frame to r/ShitPostCrusaders^[6]. While not becoming a big hit it gathered plenty of upvotes and started a trend of chain commenting “Hayato.” under every post featuring the character. In the following months there was a surge of various edits featuring Kosaku’s face being put on various other characters in similar position. This culminated on 25th of December 2018 with creation of r/Hayato^[7], a subreddit dedicated the meme only. To this day subreddit is still active with almost 13 thousand members.

Various examples

External references