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John Lennon beating his wife meme depicting an image of the Beatles member and his first wife Cynthia Lennon.

John Lennon Beat His Wife

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Updated Jan 25, 2022 at 06:13PM EST by Brandon.

Added Jan 25, 2022 at 05:07PM EST by Brandon.

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About

John Lennon Beats His Wife refers to a series of memes in reference to musician John Lennon of The Beatles, who is largely known for peaceful world-loving songs such as "Imagine," who beat his first wife, Cynthia Lennon. Primarily created via image macros, such memes using a variety of formats are shared to call attention to this lesser-known side of Lennon, as well as merely for humorous intent.

Origin

Though the phrase "John Lennon beats his wife,"[5] or variations of it, has been said colloquially for years, memes referencing the concept appeared online as early as 2014. One of the earliest posts to call attention to this was posted on Tumblr when a debate about known domestic abusers was brought up on the platform. In the post, Tumblr user grrspt listed off a group of people who were guilty of domestic abuse but are not known for it, with John Lennon being one of the first listed. This exchange was screenshotted and uploaded to Know Your Meme on September 28th, 2014, by user ChinRakka,[1] where it received over 4,100 views in seven years (shown below, click to expand).


WHY ARE THEY | AND NOT THESE THE FACE OF GUYS? DOMESTIC VIOLENCE RAVENS grrspit pomoea ean-luc-gohard the-goddamazon We know why Don't forget Charlie Sheen. He's been arrested for domestic violence at least six times and shot a woman. With a gun. And he's still got a career Sean Penn tied Madonna to a chair and beat her. F--- him. F--- all of them Michael Fassbender Matthew Fox John Lennon Paul McCartney Ringo too I'm pretty sure Phil Spector, although he's now in jail for killing a lady he beat on Ronnie Spector for years and still got into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Axl Rose Vince Neil Sean Penn Charlie Sheen Jim Morrison tried to set fire to his girlfriend Stephen Segal Tommy Lee Ozzy Osbourne Mickey Rourke Bill Murray Gary Busey Tom Sizemore Christian Slater James Caan Josh Brolin Edward Furlong l could go on The point isn't that the men on the left don't deserve everything bad they have coming to them. The point is where the f--- is all the outrage when the men on the right do it. So many of our pop culture heroes are abusers and nobody seems to care Like, even if we're gonna stick to the NFL, Ben Roethlisberger patiently sat out his six game suspension for r--- and continued on with his career with little outrage If we're really going to care now about ostracizing perpetrators of domestic violence, we got a lotta slack to pick up #… how #important #smh 69,964 notes

One of the first direct call-out memes about Lennon's domestic abuse came from the subreddit /r/OkBuddyRetard where it was uploaded by Redditor[2] boi_pucci on January 25th, 2020, receiving 275 upvotes in two years (shown below).


JOHN LENNON AFTER BEATING HIS WIFE AND INFANT SON INTO A BLOODY PULP

Spread

The concept behind these memes began to spread slowly from the sporadic posts in the 2010s, particularly in 2020, with a new post popping up every couple of months. Another example of the meme came from Facebook[3] where the now-deleted post on July 28th, 2020, using a Running Arnold Schwarzenegger meme with an image of Barnes & Noble was shared (shown below).


ME LEAVING BARNES & NOBLE AFTER MES&NOBLE WOSELLERS MOVING ALL THE JOHN LENNON BIOGRAPHIES TO THE DOMESTIC SECTION ABUSE


Another variation of the meme started to take hold in 2021 in which different characters from media would be seen repeating the same phrase, ending with the catchphrase "music was better when John Lennon was beating his wife," with an example using Stingy from Lazytown uploaded to OkBuddyRetard on October 25th, 2021, by Redditor[4] jamjam1090, earning 5,400 upvotes in five months (shown below).


RAP? MORE LIKE CRAP MUSIC WAS BETTER WHEN JOHN LENNON WAS BEATING HIS WIFE

Various Examples


CHEATING ON WIFE, BEATING WIFE, ABUSING SON JOHN LENNON IS THIS PEACE AND LOVE? imgfilip.com IMAGINE ALL THE PEOPLE BEATING UP THEIR WIVES imgtlip com OH NO JOHN LENON IS A PANCAKE HOW WILL HE BEAT HIS WIFE NOW LIVE Following For You Vnen frank ocean said 'i know you wouldn't hurt a beetle’ i did not relate cos i OY HT IWANTTO AND LIE would b3at the s--- out of john lennon given the chance 11.9K 81 RAP? MORE LIKE C CRAP! MUSIC WAS BETTER WHEN JOHN LENNON WAS BEATING HIS WIFE John Lennon on his way to sing a song about love like he didn't just beat the s--- out of his wife

Search Interest

External References

[1] KnowYourMeme – ShinRakka

[2] Reddit – okbuddyretard

[3] Facebook – Arnold Run

[4] Reddit – jamjam1090

[5] Vice – You Don't Have to 'Imagine' John Lennon Beat Women and Children

Related Entries 10 total

Recent Videos 1 total

     

Recent Images 22 total


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in reply to ImperatorZor

I hate the way Modern America is shaping up, but I think the 60's were much worse. It had the cultural degradation and nihilism of today without the post-war prosperity of the 50's, the artistic renaissance of the 70's, the hopeful optimism and bravado of the 80's, the playful edginess of the 90's, or the internet revolution of the 2010's. There is literally nothing to like about the 60's (except the guns).

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