I Will Not Eat the Bugs

About

I Will Not Eat the Bugs is a catchphrase often used in Schizoposting under the belief that there is a growing global initiative to push the world into eating bugs instead of meat due to environmental concerns of livestock. This catchphrase originated in 2019 and rose to prominence with the supply shortages and increased regulation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and is used in a variety of memes, such as image macros and copypastas.

Origin

On August 19th, 2017, the news website Mother Jones^[7] first posted an article featuring the 'We Will Not Eat The Bugs' phrase, saying that someone else will have to eat the bugs because they refuse (shown below).

On May 2nd, 2019, CNN uploaded a now-deleted video to their main site, titled "To feed the world, why not eat bugs?," which was almost a minute and a half in length with a description^[1] stating that climate change is a big cause for concern in the need to switch to eating bugs vs. traditional meat.

This rhetoric was further touched on with the Twitter^[2] post by Food Insider that helped to kick off the meme on June 28th, 2019, in which they posed the question "Would you eat insects to help save the planet?" coupled with a video on eating bugs to save the planet, earning 8.3 million views in three years (shown below).

Would you eat insects to help save the planet? 🐛 pic.twitter.com/OKQy0qzMoT

— Food Insider (@FoodInsider) June 28, 2019

The entire phrase 'I will not live in a pod and I will not eat the bugs' was first put together by Twitter user @TywysogM^[8] on September 25th, 2019, as a reply to a video of Geoffrey Cox going on a political rant in the British parliament, using Geoffrey's expression of outrage to put the phrase together as a powerful statement (shown below).

Spread

Shortly following the post made by Food Insider, memes about refusing to eat the bugs and "the establishment" forcing bug eating on people started to spread. On September 26th, 2019, the Twitter^[3] account @nic_carter uploaded a meme in which the act of saving the climate was called into question as nuclear power is often touted as a better way to achieve a cleaner climate, earning 210 likes in three years (shown below).

Counter memes, from the perspective of someone trying to force someone to eat the bugs, were also quick to be made. On November 12th, 2019, a meme using Greta Thunberg was used to push the idea of eating bugs, uploaded to Twitter^[5] by user HenkBautz as his profile picture (shown below).

The phrase was used on and off within niche circles until it started to get more mainstream notoriety in 2021. The Daily Beast^[4] put together an article accusing anti-Covid 'truthers' as being the main ones to push the theory of bug eating and being against the idea. This helped spark more internet and meme presence on the topic, resulting in a full-on copypasta being made with the original phrase having many more added to it from the perspective of a culture warrior in a battle with an enemy that wants them to do various things. An example of this pasta, using a Crusader Pepe, was uploaded to Reddit by Redditor^[6] Chichcob on December 18th, 2021, earning 1,340 upvotes in one month (shown below).

Related Memes

You'll Own Nothing and Be Happy

You'll Own Nothing and Be Happy (originally You'll Own Nothing and You'll Be Happy) is a catchphrase originating from a 2016 essay by Danish MP Ida Auken which was included in the video "8 Predictions for the World in 2030" by the World Economic Forum. While the prediction was originally explained as "all products will become services," in has since been increasingly regarded as a harbinger of dystopian times when the human right to property would be abolished for the benefit of the few. Online, the catchphrase and image macros based on it have been used to comment on sociopolitical and economic issues and developments.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References