About

How to Kidnap Me refers to a series of image macros in which the author makes a joke about what it would take to lure them into a trap, specifically a picture of a van or box-and-stick trap with something the meme's author likes as the bait.

Origin

On October 27th, 2012, Twitter ^[1] user @foxbIood posted a picture of a written dialogue between "me" and a "child predator." The conversation ends with "me" being lured by the "child predator," who promises their prey wifi in their van. They captioned the post (shown below) "How to kidnap me."

Spread

The following year, on December 15th, 2013 Twitter^[2] user @bryanstars posted a picture of a van with a sign that says "Free Band Merch" on it. The post (shown below) received more than 580 retweets and 690 likes in three-and-a-half years.

Over the next few years, two versions of the meme prevailed. The first, featured a van with the words "Free X" on the side. The most popular versions of this appeared in 2015. On March 31st, 2015, Meme Droid^[2] user j12gdp posted an image macro of a brown van with the words "Free Pizza" on the side of it. The post (shown below, left) has more 1,800 views (88% upvoted) in four years. The following year, when shared on Twitter^[3] by the meme account @TheFunnyTeens, the image received more than 1,500 retweets and 2,300 likes in a year and a half.

Another variation of the meme features a box-and-stick trip with several pieces of pizza leading to the trap. Occasionally, the pizza will be replaced by other items. On February 3rd, 2016, the Twitter^[4] meme account @menshumor posted (shown below, right) the box-and-stick with pizza variant, receiving more than 850 retweets and 980 likes in one year.

On September 20th, 2017, Redditor ^[5] Danker_Than_Allowed posted a box-and-stick variation in the /r/MemeEconomy subreddit. The variant (shown below) featured the Lego Star Wars video game.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References