About

Instagram vs. /r/dankmemes War refers to the viral debate surrounding Instagram users stealing memes from /r/dankmemes and reposting them to Instagram. This has led Redditors to create ways of deterring Instagram users from reposting.

Origin

On December 14th, 2018, Redditor ^[1] 1000MothsInAManSuit posted an outstanding move image to the dankmemes subreddit littered with Reddit phrases with a caption that reads, "Using Reddit references in your meme to keep people from posting it to Instagram." The post gained 12,600 points (97% upvoted) within a month (shown below).

Precursor

There have been numerous instances of Redditors and Instagram users posting material that criticizes the other platform. On December 3rd, 2018, Redditor^[2] MoltenMind posted an image to the dankmemes subreddit with the caption "It's bad when a stolen instagram meme makes it too hot." The post featured Instagram user @photographicmemery's post and the repost on the dankmemes subreddit four days later. The post gained 49 points (83% upvoted) within the month (shown below).

Spread

On December 15th, 2018 Redditors began uploading memes that would be difficult for an Instagram user to upload.
For example, LSK01 upload a stretched modern solutions variation which gained 103,000 points (97% upvoted) within a month (shown below, left). Excuseme_wtf posted another similar image with a large Reddit watermark which gained 1,300 points (95% upvoted) within the month (shown below, right).

On January 21st, 2019, QUZANG posted^[3] an image of a stamp saying "this is not my creation, I stole it" for other Redditors to use on their images. The image garnered 3,300 points (96% upvoted) within a day (shown below, left). The same day, thefryn uploaded a drakeposting variation using a similar stamp stating, "this meme was made for reddit, this was not made for instagram." The image accumulated 269 points (94%upvoted) within a day (shown below, right).

On January 22nd, mechanicalmorgan posted an image pointing out that an Instagram user could simply remove the watermark. The image gained 358 points (97% upvoted) with a day (shown below, left). The same day, joyp72 posted an image showing an Instagram user attempting to give credit to a Redditor. The post garnered 85 points (93% upvoted) within a day (shown below, right).

On January 22nd, Redditors also began posting images solely composed of the Reddit stamps. For example, stspyro's image received 71,600 points (95% upvoted) within a day (shown below, left). U/ShoreSWBF posted a Lisa Simpson Presentation variation composed of watermarks gaining 73,000 points (92% upvoted) in a day (shown below, right).

On March 21st, YouTuber Internet Historian released a video talking about the situation that gained over 5.4 million views in a year and a half (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References