About

Life Of a Meme or Brand Puts Pineapple on Head is a webcomic by artist Alex Krokus that describes the lifecycle of a meme and how it dies when a brand embraces it, illustrated through a pink or red man labeled "brand" placing a pineapple on his head after noticing other people doing the same. The comic was posted to Instagram in July 2023 and garnered viral spread over the following months, becoming an exploitable object-labeling meme and the subject of edits that changed elements of the original comic to alter the context.

Origin

On July 31st, 2023, Instagram^[1] and X^[2] user and artist Alex Krokus posted a four-panel comic titled "Life of a Meme" that garnered over 23,800 likes on the former and 234,000 likes on the latter in a year. In the comic, a group of blue people begin joyously posting pictures online with pineapples over their heads. Then, a pink character labeled "brand" walks in with a pineapple on his head, disgruntling the blue people. More brands begin placing pineapples on their heads, causing the blue people to give up on the meme.

Spread

The comic garnered viral spread over the following months, becoming the subject of edits. For example, on August 2nd, 2023, 9GAG^[3] user nietzsche_coeur posted an edit replacing "brand" with "influencer," garnering over 900 upvotes in a year. On October 25th, the original was posted to the subreddit /r/196,^[4] garnering over 6,000 upvotes in a year.

On June 15th, 2024, X^[5] user @marionumber4 posted a version of the meme referencing Elon Musk, garnering over 3,500 likes in six months. On July 25th, u/GraphicNovelty posted a version of the meme to /r/charlixcx^[6] referencing the way her album Brat was overtaken by brands, garnering over 1,700 upvotes in five months.

On August 25th, X^[7] user @yooniv_yooni00 posted a version of the meme referencing the Brazilian Miku trend, suggesting that it was ruined when someone made an Israeli Miku variant, garnering over 176,000 likes in four months.

Some people found the meme by @yooniv_yooni00 antisemitic. For example, on August 26th, X^[8] user @MateuszMatusek posted a version of the meme suggesting @yooniv_yooni00's post made the meme political, garnering over 1,000 likes in four months.

On December 2nd, 2024, Redditor u/YourWorstNightmare_- posted a version of the meme referencing the H3 Podcast to the subreddit /r/h3h3productions,^[9] garnering over 1,400 upvotes in a day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References