About

Is Now Playing refers to a series of snowclones that use the template of Steam notifications to comment on the subject. In this meme, the username is replaced so that the game they are "now playing" reflects something about the new user.

Origin

"Is Now Playing" is based on the notification banners from the digital gaming distribution platform Steam. On Steam, when a friend begins a game, a notification banner appears that shows their avatar and says "[Username] Is Now Playing [Name of Video Game] appears (shown below).

The earliest iteration of parody memes of this format appeared in 2016. On March 17th, 2016, vrutal user Themasteroflag uploaded a photoshopped version of the notification, replacing Donald Trump as the profile picture and username, so the the notification read "Donald Trump is now playing Papers, Please," commenting on Trump's immigration policy. The post (shown below) received more than 270 points and 90 comments.^[5]

Spread

On July 1st, Facebook user feggetkent posted one of the earliest examples of these notification parodies, a photoshopped notification banner with the text "The entire population of Russia is now playing Don't Starve Together." In the area of the notification banner reserved for the username are the words "The entire population of Russia," but maintaining the real game title Don't Starve Together, making a joke about Russia's economic issues. Within a week, the post received more than 3,400 shares, 330 reactions and 70 comments.^[6]

The following day, Twitter user @ColorsWasShit posted the images and within three days, the post (shown below) has received more than 800 retweets and 1,600 likes.^[1]

Shortly after, on July 3rd, this image appeared on 9Gag, where it received more than 21,000 points and 239 comments.^[4]

On July 5th, the image made its way to Reddit, when Redditor sr_michifus^[3] posted a variation of the meme, replacing the profile picture with a Venezuelan flag and the text "The entire population of Venezuela is now playing Don't Starve Together." The post (shown below) received more than 21,900 points (89% upvoted) and 240 comments.^[5]

The following day, Redditor googlerandomusername posted the meme to the /r/MemeEconomy subreddit. The post received more than 10,700 points (89% upvoted) and 100 comments in 13 hours.^[2]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References