About

Just Found Out About Racism is a frequently used caption to images of men looking distraught. One of the most popular variations features a shirtless man on a bed looking directly into the camera, implying flirtation. This version has become subject to further proliferation, as people replace the word "racism" on the photo with other social issues or pop culture artifacts.

Origin

On April 15th, 2019, Twitter ^[1] @notdevito tweeted a photograph of a man, Mod Ash^[7] (product manager at Jagex and a prominent figure in the Old School Runescape community), with a forlorn look on his face, sitting with a beer. They captioned the photo, "Just found out about racism…damn that shit sucks…" This is the earliest available version of the format, and it received more than 1,500 retweets and 6,900 likes in less than one month (shown below).

Spread

Later that evening, Twitter^[2] user @fayglo tweeted a version featuring a teen boy standing in front of a sports car. The post received more than 1,400 retweets and 5,400 likes in less than one month (shown below, left).

Additionally, that night, iFunny ^[3] user FatPat posted the earliest known version of the shirtless man variant, which received more than 775 upvotes (shown below, center). The photograph used in the post was taken from a viral tweet made by user @timfoolery on April 3rd, 2019.^[5]

This version quickly became the most popular format for the meme, as people used the photograph and changed what subject the man "just found out about." On April 18th, popular Instagram account grandmas.buttwhole posted the image, with the post receiving over 62,000 likes in three weeks.^[6] On April 21st, Twitter^[4] user @wornsword tweeted a variation that reads, "Just found out about gender dysphoria…. damn that shit sucks." The post received more than 860 retweets and 2,900 likes in less than one month (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Templates

Search Interest

External References