About

Holy Shit! Two Cakes! is a 2014 cartoon that metaphorically explains the difference in perception of art by artists and their audiences by drawing an analogy between artworks and cakes. Often reposted in the following years, the cartoon has since gained popularity as an exploitable and inspired comics referencing the original.

Origin

On July 17th, 2014, Tumblr^[1] user stuffman posted a two-panel Paint cartoon in which they used cake as an analogy for artworks to explain the difference in perception of art by artists and their audience. The post (shown below, left) received over 780,000 likes and reblogs in seven years year. On July 18th, Tumblr^[2] user pervocracy replied to the post, commenting that it was very motivating (screenshot shown below, right).

Spread

Both the post and the screenshot of the post with pervocracy's comment received viral spread online in the following years. For example, on March 24th, 2015, Know Your Meme^[3] user SmileyRichie archived the screenshot on the site, where it gained over 12,400 views in seven years. On April 3rd, 2017, Twitter^[4] user @korybing reposted the image, with the tweet gaining over 10,700 retweets and 23,400 likes in four years.

On July 19th, 2014, Tumblr^[5][6] users gastrophobia and superhappy posted the two earliest memes based on the comic, with gastrophobia partly redrawing it and adding additional panels (shown below, left) and superhappy drawing another scenario based on the premise (shown below, center). On April 3rd, 2017, Twitter^[7] user @peprally (superhappy) tweeted the images, gaining 56 retweets and over 230 likes in four years.

On March 17th, 2017, Tumblr^[8] user disgruntledlungfish posted the earliest found meme that used the comic as an exploitable, with the post gaining over 12,400 likes and reblogs in four years (shown below). On April 4th, 2017, Twitter^[9] user @sdamned posted an original cartoon referencing stuffman's cartoon which gained over 1,600 retweets and 3,900 likes (shown below, right).

On June 29th, 2019, Twitter^[10] user @taijuey reposted the cartoon, with the post gaining over 11,200 retweets and 36,600 likes in two years.

The image achieved more popularity in memes in 2020 after on March 29th Twitter^[11] user @princely_habits made another repost which gained over 30,300 retweets and 135,900 likes in one year. For example, on March 30th, Twitter^[12] user @darthaline posted three edits of the comic, with the tweet gaining over 4,300 retweets and 10,400 likes in one year (shown below).

In December 2021, the format regained popularity on Twitter^[13] following a viral Borzoi meme by user @Greedfielf.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References