About

I Do as the Crystal Guides refers to a memorable quote said by character Morty of the animated TV series Rick and Morty. Online, an image macro based on the quote gained popularity, often used in reference to people blindly relying on somebody or something for guidance.

Origin

On November 10th, 2019, episode "Edge of Tomorty: Rick Die Rickpeat" premiered.^[1] In the episode, character Morty comes into possession of a crystal which shows the person holding it the way they are going to die. Becoming obsessed with the vision he has been shown by the crystal, Morty begins to tailor all his actions in order to achieve it.

- Why are letting me do this?
- I do as the crystal guides.

On November 11th, 2019, a promotional screenshot from the series paired with the quote was posted to Rick and Morty social media accounts, with the posts reaching over 372,100 likes on Instagram^[2] and 20,000 reactions on Facebook (shown below).^[3]

On the same day, Facebook user Sean Mack posted the first known meme based on the image macro in the comment section under the Facebook post (shown below, left).^[4] Later on the same day, Redditor Darraghdude21 posted another meme based on the scene to /r/dankmemes, gaining over 88,600 upvotes (shown below, right).^[5]

Spread

In the following days, the image macro gained notable presence in memes on Reddit and Facebook. For example, a November 14th, 2019, post by Redditor aphranteus gained over 1,900 upvotes in /r/dndmemes (shown below, left).^[6] A November 20th post by Facebook user Tom Traynor in Nirnposting Facebook group received over 1,400 reactions (shown below, right).^[7]

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References