About

Lawd Dem Rangs refers to a series of memes mocking cast diversity in the 2022 Amazon television series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, in which, unlike the 2001 adaptation, multiple characters are portrayed by BIPOC actors. Inspired by a We Wuz Kings meme circulated after the announcement of the series in 2017, the meme surged in popularity on 4chan's /tv/ board near the time of the series premiere in 2022 with posts about a Black dwarfess character changing a gospel about "dem rangz."

Origin

On November 13th, 2017, Deadline^[1] reported that Amazon closed a deal to acquire TV rights to The Lord of the Rings, based on the fantasy novels by J.R.R. Tolkien. On the same day, in a /tv/ thread about future TV series based on the novels, an anonymous 4chan^[2] user posed an edited poster for the 2003 film The Lord of the Ring: The Return of the King in which all white characters were replaced with Black characters (shown below, left). On November 14th, the poster, which references We Wuz Kings meme, was used in the opening post^[3] of a /tv/ thread about the series (shown below, right).

Spread

In the following years, the poster and its further edited versions were widely circulated online, going viral on multiple platforms. On September 8th, 2018, a 4chan^[4] user posted a version recaptioned "The Lord of the Rangs" in a /tv/ thread (shown below, left). On July 6th, 2019, Facebook^[5] user Ming Ming reposted the image, with the post gaining over 1,200 reactions and 17,000 shares in three years. On July 7th, 2019, 9GAG^[6] user jeikkimaru reposted it, gaining over 4,600 upvotes. On January 14th, 2020, a 4chan^[7] user posted another re-edited version of the ]poster, editing in police cars and captioning it "Lawd Dem Rangs" (shown below, right). The version was actively circulated on 4chan in threads dedicated to the show and received viral spread online, with the phrases such as "Lawd dem rangs," "Lawd a dem rangz" also being used on /tv/ and /pol/ to mock cast diversity in the series.^[8][9]

Black Dwarfess Gospel

On August 20th, 2022, an anonymous 4chan^[10] user posted a promotional image of Dwarven princess Disa, portrayed by Black actress Sophia Nomvete, singing. The image was captioned it with lyrics about the Lord of the Rings which mocked stereotypical gospel chanting and African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) and implemented the Lawd Dem Rings meme (shown below).

In late August 2022, memes that combined images of Disa with the versions of the lyrics and other AAVE captions about "dem rings" achieved massive popularity on 4chan's /tv/ board, also spreading to Twitter and Reddit. For example, on August 25th, a /tv/^[11] user started one such thread that received over 180 replies (post shown below, left). On April 27th, following the premiere of the final trailer for the series, a /tv/^[12] user replied with the lyrics to a post (show below, center). Later that day, Twitter^[13] user @AetiusRF posted a tweet that received over 990 retweets and 7,900 likes in ten days (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References