Is It Really Worth It?

About

Is It Really Worth It? is a caption used for satirical, anti-animal cruelty memes that pretend common items and food are actually the body parts of animals, one example being the tapioca balls in boba tea (bubble tea) actually being the eyeballs of cute mice. The memes emphasize their points using red lines and circles, similar to the Red Circle Perpetrators trend. It started in 2016 on Reddit.

Origin

On December 17th, 2016, Redditor Griaule uploaded a post to /r/gaming^[1] that satirically emphasized that the texture of a PlayStation controller's joystick is the same as the nose of a dog's. They wrote in the post's caption, "Every year, 10 trillion "doggos" are killed to make a PlayStation controller," and over the course of six years, the post received roughly 38,700 upvotes (shown below).

Spread

The dog nose and PlayStation controller meme was reposted to platforms like Instagram ^[2] in late 2016.

In early 2020, the satirical animal cruelty concept received more engagement. On April 12th, 2020, Redditor ManILoveFarming posted a Facebook screenshot to /r/insanepeoplefacebook,^[3] showing a post that believed cows were being spun by farmers over 3000rpm to double the amount of meat. The Reddit post received roughly 1,700 upvotes in two years (shown below, left). On April 17th, 2020, Redditor vaginapenetrator69 exploited the Facebook post, using the same cow images but captioning them, "Is your milkshake really worth it?" and posting it to /r/Memes. ^[4] In two years, the meme received roughly 127,000 upvotes (shown below, right).

On September 19th, 2020, Twitter^[5] user BirdExecutive copied the aforementioned "milkshake" meme in a tweet that received roughly 380,100 likes in two years. On January 17th, 2022, the Instagram^[6] page animalhumors reposted BirdExecutive's tweet, earning roughly 3,000 likes in one month. On January 18th, 2022, Redditor Undava uploaded a meme to /r/okbuddyretard ^[7] that received over 800 upvotes. It showed a baby being turned into baby oil (shown below).

On July 27th, 2022, the Instagram^[8] page herrfloppa compared an image of Big Floppa's belly to almonds, writing in the top caption, "Is it really worth it?" The meme received roughly 1,800 likes in one week (shown below, left). On July 28th, 2020, the template was exploited in a meme posted by Twitter^[9] user alicetocracy, showing a mouse's eye compared to tapioca pearls in bubble tea. The tweet received roughly 2,800 likes in one week (shown below, right).

It is currently unknown if Twitter user alicetocracy was the creator of the "bubble tea" iteration. If they are not, their tweet is the first-known repost. Later on July 28th, 2022, Twitter^[10] user goddessxwept posted the "bubble tea" meme, earning roughly 131,200 likes in the same time period.

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References