About

"It's Afraid" is a quote from an iconic scene in the 1997 film Starship Troopers. The quote and the scene it is from became the subject of various memes, photoshops, edits and parodies starting in 2016.

Origin

The science fiction action film Starship Troopers premiered on November 4th, 1997,^[1] and was officially released 3 days later on November 7th in the United States of America.^[2][3] The iconic scene and line make their appearance towards the end of the film, which showcases human troops from the Mobile Infantry of the United Citizen Federation capturing a highly-intelligent Arachnid, known as the "Brain Bug".^[4] Colonel Carl Jenkins (played by Neil Patrick Harris) then uses his psychic abilities to detect that the Brain Bug is afraid, and after he announces that fact, the surrounding troops rejoice and celebrate.

"What's it thinking, colonel?"
"…."
"It's afraid. It's afraid!"

Spread

"It's Afraid" became a popular meme on 4chan, with edits often replacing the Brain Bug with a character or a person, usually of political or ideological backgrounds. An anti-Semitic edit featuring the Happy Merchant became particularly popular on /pol/, being posted as early as July 2nd, 2016,^[5] and being posted altogether over 1,820 times on various boards (shown below, left).^{[6][7][8][9][10][11]} An edit featuring Joe Biden sensing fear in a MAGA hat-wearing Pepe was posted on November 6th, 2020, on /tv/ (shown below, right).^[12]

On February 7th, 2022, an edit featuring Justin Trudeau in reference to the Freedom Convoy protests was posted on 9GAG, and it received over 195 points in 9 months (shown below, left).^[13] On Reddit, on April 21st, 2022, a Wojak Comic showcasing an atheist being afraid of Christian nationalists was posted on r/CatholicMemes by BasedCroat2008 (shown below, right). The post garnered 630 points in 7 months.^[14]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References