Homer Simpson's Back Fat

About

Homer Simpson's Back Fat refers to a series of "image macros" based on a scene from the American animated television comedy The Simpsons. The two-panel image features the typically-obese character Homer Simpson showing off his thin body following a stomach stabling to his wife Marge above an image of Homer from behind, revealing that his loose skin is being clipped back by rubberbands. Online, the images express an attempt to hide ones true self from a loved one.

Origin

The image comes from an episode of The Simpsons "Husbands & Knives," which premiered on November 18th, 2007.^[1] In the episode, Homer attempts to impress Marge by getting a gastric stapling surgery. However, after the procedure, Homer is self conscious about the loose skin left over from surgery. Homer then decided to hide the skin by clipping behind his back.

The earliest known usage of the image online was a GIF posted by estrelaperdida in 2012. While the post has since been deleted the GIF was added to the website Favim^[6] on February 10th, 2012.

Spread

On May 26th, 2012, Blogspot^[2] user Dalmauh posted a two-panel image of the moment, adding the comment, "Homer Simpson teaches us a little trick to show a slender body for this summer."

The following year, on October 7th, 2013, MemeCenter ^[3] user recyclebin posted the image with the caption "Wow Homer, you look so thin / It's all thanks to diet and exercise.. and beer!" The post (shown below, left) received more than 2,000 likes in five years.

Two years later, on January 27th, 2015, Favim^[5] user patrisha posted a template of the image. The post (shown below, center) received more than 2,500 views in three years.

On December 29th, weheartit.com^[4] user @zee_rizk posted the image with the caption "Me trying to be fit for bae like." Within three years, the post (shown below, right) received more than 780 hearts.

On August 2nd, 2018, Twitter ^[7] user @FootyHumour posted the image with the caption "Higuain during his AC Milan medical." The post (shown below) received more than 4,800 retweets and 12,000 likes in four days.

Four days later, on August 6th, Redditor ^[8] nnacraroni posted an object labeled variation of the meme. The post features Homer's chest laveled "my confident facade" and his back labeled "Anxiety Depression Debt Bad grades." The post (shown below, left) received more than 28,000 points (89% upvoted) and 1,900 comments in less than 24 hours.

Over the next several hours, more variations began appearing on Reddit (examples below, center and right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References