About

Karl Havoc is a character from the Netflix sketch comedy show I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson. The character originates from a sketch parodying prank-based comedians such as Eric Andre. In the sketch, the host of the prank show show puts on prosthetics to appear to be an old man named Karl Havoc. The host finds the costume too suffocating and heavy to perform any pranks. Multiple lines from the sketch, most notably "I Don't Even Want To Be Around Anymore", became catchphrases on social media almost immediately, with the Karl Havoc makeup being used as a reaction image for uncomfortable or sad situations.

Origin

The sketch "Prank Show" premiered as part of the second season of "I Think You Should Leave", on July 6th, 2021. The sketch was officially uploaded to YouTube on July 9th.

Spread

The earliest example of Karl Havoc being used as a reaction was on July 7th, a day after the sketch was released, when Twitter user @robtrench posted the image with a Tweet saying "seeing a dumb tweet you made at the top of a subreddit with over 2 million subscribers" (shown below, left).^[1] On July 27th, a tweet from Twitter user @sablaah with an example of the meme received over 3,000 likes in 5 days^[3] (shown below, right).

Multiple news outlets recognized it as one of the breakout memes from I Think You should Leave. Allison Foreman discussed how relatable the situation was in a July 8th article for Mashable, saying "I, for one, have definitely wanted to rip my head off before -- prosthetics or no prosthetics."^[2] On August 2nd, journalist Miles Klee received over 3,000 likes in 24 hours when he called Karl Havoc "the big meme of ITYSL S2".^[4]

Various Examples

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Search Interest

External References