About

I Could Have Saved Her, also known as I Could Have Saved Him, refers to an exploitable meme template from a Flork of Cows comic that shows a guy weightlifting at a gym looking at a poster for motivation and stating that he could have saved the character pictured. Meme creators replaced the poster, usually with image macros of recognizable characters from other subcultures and fandoms, predominantltly from anime, manga and video games. Creators also replaced the pronoun akin to what character their iteration referenced.

Origin

On August 17th, 2022, webcomic artist Flork of Cows posted to Twitter^[1][2] a comic that referenced an imagined gym in which anime and manga":https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cultures/anime-manga posters were hung up on the walls to provide motivation for the clientele. The comic was split into two tweets. The first included a four-panel comic that received roughly 18,500 likes in one month. It prefaced a bonus panel in the secondary tweet that showed the gym character looking at a poster from the anime Your Lie And April while lifting a weight and proclaiming, "I could have saved her," in reference to the manga's female protagonist (shown below, left). The aforementioned tweet received roughly 3,500 likes in one month. Also on August 17th, Flork of Cows posted the comic to Tumblr,^[5] including another image of the character saying, "I could have saved him," in regards to a poster of Maes Hughes from Fullmetal Alchemist (shown below, right). The Tumblr post received roughly 2,500 notes in one month.

Spread

In the replies of Flork of Cows' tweet, Twitter users started remixing the comic as an exploitable template. For instance, on August 17th, 2022, Twitter^[3] user augmented_pepe was the first to do so, replacing the poster with an image of Makima from the anime series Chainsaw Man, gaining over 710 likes in one month (shown below, left). Soon after, Twitter^[4] user A_Fro_Among_Few added to the trend, replacing the poster with an image of Madoka Kaname from the anime series Puella Magi Madoka Magica and layering the hair of the character Homura Akemi on top of the weightlifter. Over the course of one month, the meme received roughly 1,000 likes (shown below, right).

The template gained usage going into September 2022, spreading to multiple platforms. For instance, on September 11th, 2022, the Instagram^[6] account owntheassmask posted an iteration that referenced Viktor Reznov from Call of Duty: World at War, gaining roughly 4,400 likes in 17 days (shown below, left). On September 25th, 2022, iFunnyer ^[7] SenSene referenced the characters from Cyberpunk Edgerunners, gaining roughly 6,200 smiles in three days (shown below, right).

Related Memes

Hey Man You See That Guy Over There

Hey Man You See That Guy Over There is an exploitable image series based on a Florkofcows comic featuring two illustrated socks discussing a third character in the distance. Since its creation in late April 2017, various edits of the comic have been creating referencing people and characters from anime, video games and other media.

Connecticut Clark

Connecticut Clark is a character within the Flork of Cows universe. In the first webcomic, Clark is created by some guy within the comic and is described as an average man from Connecticut with no OP. The comics later included the character Malfina the Demon Witch who falls in love with Clark. The "Clark Saga" was first uploaded by Flork to Reddit and Twitter, starting in March 2019. The character is also used as an exploitable in memes.

Various Examples

Templates

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References