About

I Love This Photo Because It Invokes Primal Reactions in People refers to an ironic phrasal template or catchphrase used to parody a Twitter post that attempted to glorify an image of a high-school football player and cheerleader kissing. The original tweet read, "I love this photo because it invokes primal reactions in people. They are the couple everyone wishes they were in high school." The image has been in circulation on 4chan since 2015, but resurfaced in 2022.

Origin

On July 15th, 2015, Redditer^[1] whatthefuckisreddit posted a screenshot from a now deleted 4chan thread that used an image of a football player and a cheerleader sharing a kiss (seen below).

On September 2nd, 2022, Twitter^[2] user @neilsknk posted a tweet using the photo, alongside a caption that read, "I love this photo because it invokes primal reactions in people. They are the couple everyone wishes they were in high school. They represent the summun of popularity and success. Those who fall short this ideal cannot help but feel the sting of envy. A mirror into your soul." The tweet gathered 1,500 likes and 4,000 quote tweets in five days (seen below).

Spread

On September 2nd, Twitter^[3] user @ben_foth posted a tweet using an image of two people in the midst of a proposal, using the same caption as the aforementioned viral tweet. The tweet received two likes in five days (seen below).

On September 3rd, 2022, Twitter^[4] user @DavidRoomeAuth posted a photo of Team Rocket from Pokemon, and used the same phrasal template. The upload received over 300 likes and 50 retweets in four days (seen below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References