Joker Listening to Todd Phillips on a Subway

About

Joker Listening to Todd Phillips on a Subway is an image macro series featuring a behind-the-scenes photo from the production of the 2019 film Joker of actor Joaquin Phoenix and director Todd Phillips. The image spread as a meme in August 2020, with many using the object labeling format to express feelings of detachment during a conversation.

Origin

On October 17th, 2019, Todd Phillips published the photograph on Instagram. ^[1] Within one year, the post received more than 194,000 likes (shown below).

The following day, Redditor DanzyBoi123 shared an object labeling version of the image in the /r/PewdiepieSubmission.^[2] In the post, Joker's label reads "Reddit" and Phillips' label reads "Me showcasing this new meme format to Reddit." The post received more than350 points (97% upvoted) in less than one year (shown below).

Spread

On August 17th, 2020, Facebook^[3] user WonderfulEngineering shared a variation of the meme. The author captioned Joker "engineering students and Phillips "other students complaining how stressful their course is." The post received more than 6,000 reactions, 1,300 shares and 210 comments in less than one month (shown below, left).

Days later, on August 30th, Redditor zakuria44 shared a variation on the /r/dankmemes ^[4] subreddit. In the post, Joker's label reads "my dad asking himself why he didn't pull out that night" and Phillips' label reads "me explaining how during a nuclear explosion, there is a certain distance of the radius where all the frozen pizzas are cooked to perfection." The post received more than 119,000 points (91% upvoted) and 5,400 comments in less than one day (shown below, center).

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

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External References