About

I Want You To Put The Word Out There That We Back Up is a reaction image featuring actor Idris Elba portraying Stringer Bell in the crime drama television series The Wire saying the line. It is often used as an exploitable meme in fandoms, particularly among sports fans, celebrating a team overcoming a slump and returning to winning ways with people editing a hat onto his head, his clothing or changing the background.

Origin

In season 1, episode 13 of The Wire, titled "Sentencing" and released September 8th, 2002,^[1] the character Stringer Bell (played by Idris Elba) says, "I want you to put the word out there that we back up."

The scene started seeing use as a meme beginning in 2021. One of the earliest known uses of the meme appeared on Reddit on April 21st, 2021, posted by costellbro in the /r/nyknicks^[2] subreddit, celebrating the Knicks eight-game winning streak. The post gained over 110 points in two and a half years (shown below).

Spread

Over the following months, the image was used in numerous fandom-related memes. For example, on August 10th, 2021, Twitter user @mannyfidel^[3] used it in response to news that Elba would be voicing the character Knuckles in the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 film, gaining over 1,000 retweets and 5,100 likes in two years (shown below, left).

On January 19th, 2023, Twitter / X user @_ronarch^[4] used it to describe the zombie genre after the premiere of The Last of Us television series, gaining over 100 likes in one year (shown below, right).

However, the image is most commonly used in sports fandoms. For example, on December 2nd, 2022, the Twitter account @TerrapinHoops^[5] used it to celebrate the Maryland University basketball team, gaining over 620 retweets and 2,500 likes in one year (shown below, left). On November 2nd, 2023, Redditor HatchMo^[6] used it in reference to the Las Vegas Raiders, gaining over 90 points in one month (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References