About

Knight Protecting Princess refers to a Fantasy Painting Object Labeling image macro of an armored guard protecting a young girl from a horde of onlookers. In the image macros, the knight, princess, and onlookers are labeled different things, creating scenarios where one is defending something against a hoard of critics.

Origin

The painting is called "Guard" and is by DeviantArt artist wlop. It was posted December 19th, 2015.^[1]

Spread

On May 10th, 2016, YouTube account Epic Music World paired a moving version of the image with the track "Carry Me" by Eurielle, gaining over 6.6 million views in nearly two years.

One week later, a picture with the crowd labeled "Pirates" and the knight's shield labeled "Denuvo" was posted to 4chan's /v/ board (shown below, left).^[2] However, the image did not see wide use as a meme until February of 2018, after Fantasy Painting Object Labeling grew into a popular meme earlier in the year. The likely cause of the spike can be traced to an /r/dankmemes^[3] post by acox_mu from February 21st, 2018, that gained over 31,000 upvotes (shown below, right).

In the following days, the image spread throughout Reddit and Twitter as users labeled the relevant parties in the image different things. Popular examples include a post in /r/animemes celebrating the subreddit that gained over 1,800 upvotes.^[4] Twitter user @happycapricorn^[5] posted a tweet about the astrological sign Leo with the image, gaining over 250 retweets (shown below, right). A question about the source of the memes was posted to /r/OutOfTheLoop^[6] on February 26th, 2018.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable

External References