Is That Seat Taken?
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About
Is That Seat Taken? refers to a four-panel fan comic in which the Fairy Tail character Lucy Heartphilia asks if she can take a seat in Natsu Dragneel's lap, putting him into a stupor. The comic has since been used as an exploitable source material for ironic memes, with the last panel replaced with non-sequiturs punchlines.
Origin
On September 24th, 2020, the artist chiblnes posted a four-panel fan comic based on Fairy Tail characters Lucy Heartphilia and Natsu Dragneel. In the comic, Lucy asks Natsu if "that seat is taken," pointing at his lap. Natsu does not understand the advance and becomes stupefied. The comic (shown below) received over 164,000 likes on Instagram,[1] 4,100 likes and reblogs on Tumblr[2] and 560 retweets and 3,000 likes on Twitter[3] in one year.
In the following months, the comic was reposted multiple times, including viral reposts on iFunny[4][5] that were featured and received over 26,600 and 67,800 smiles.
On March 27th, 2021, Redditor SpongeGirlWetPants posted the first meme based on the comic in several anime subreddits, replacing the last panel with a frame from a 1980s anime series Touch (shown below). The post received over 21,600 upvotes in the /r/goodanimemes[6] subreddit and over 2,000 upvotes in the /r/animememes[7] subreddit in three months.
Spread
On March 29th, 2021, Redditor DeltaVortex509 posted a Robert Downey Jr.'s Comments meme based on the comic to the /r/HornyJail[8] subreddit, where it received over 6,900 upvotes in three months (shown below, left). On April 6th, Redditor AGamer20 reposted the meme to the /r/okbuddyretard[9] subreddit, with the post gaining over 13,400 upvotes prior to being removed.
On April 12th, 2021, YouTuber[10] Benson posted a dubbed version of DeltaVortex509's meme, with the video accumulating over 2.5 million views in three months (shown below, right).
On May 17th, 2020, YouTuber[11] Arcade Assassin posted an Industrial Society and It's Future Audiobook version of the meme that received over 2.5 million views in six weeks (shown below).
Starting in mid-May 2021, the format gained moderate popularity in non-sequitur video edits, particularly on YouTube and Instagram.
Various Examples
Template
Search Interest
External References
[5] iFunny – _MementoMori
[7] Reddit – That's a keeper
[8] Reddit – Nice Job lads
[9] Reddit – Anime grill on laptop? 😳😳🥰😳🥰🤩😄🤨😊😅🤯😗
[10] YouTube – Is That Seat Taken?
[11] YouTube – Is that seat taken?