About

Jeremy Clarkson Driving an Ariel Atom is a series of image macros of Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson driving at high speeds with his cheeks being pushed back because of the speed. Online, people caption a screen-capture of the moment with jokes about speed.

Origin

On December 26th, 2004, Top Gear aired episode nine of season five. In the episode, Jeremy Clarkson drives an Ariel Atom racecar, which drives at such high speeds, his cheeks are pushed back (shown below, left).^[1]

On April 27th, 2012, Redditor ^[2] MrOLMOBE posted a screen-capture of the image (shown below, right) in the /r/funny subreddit. The post received more than 100 points (81% upvoted) within six years.

Spread

One of the earliest uses of the moment as an image macro was posted by Redditor^[3] wrath505 posted the image with the caption "How I feel upgrading from a five year old laptop." The post received more than 1,900 points (94% upvoted) and 390 comments. When published to Imgur, ^[4] the post (shown below) received more than 970 points and 1,500 views in six years.

Six years later, on June 15th, 2018, Redditor^[5] wickedskengman2 published a variation of the meme in the /r/MemeEconomy. This version (shown below) was captioned "Imagine the history of France but every time there's a revolution it gets faster." The post (shown below, left) received more than 23,000 points (88% upvoted) and 200 comments.

Over the next two days, Redditors in /r/HistoryMemes began posting more variations of the meme (examples below, center and right).

Various Examples

External References