About

LOL Is U Ded refers to an image of a man poking a dead body with a stick alongside the text "lol is u ded," as if the man with the stick is lightheartedly asking if the person is alive. The image is taken from a 2008 YouTube skit and has been the subject of object-labeling memes, photoshops and image macros as early as 2015.

Origin

On January 13th, 2008, YouTuber^[1] Keith Hanshaw posted a comedy skit titled "Dead Guy Freeload" about how to profit off a dead body if you find one, including tips like searching the body's pockets for goods and suggesting a body can be a "financial jackpot." Around timestamp 0:10, a man pokes a body with a stick to see if the person is alive (shown below). The video gained over 153,000 views in 13 years.

On May 2nd, 2015, Tumblr^[2] user onlytwitterpics posted an image macro using a screenshot from the video with additional subtitles reading "lol is u ded" showing the man poking the body with the top caption, "When your friend doesn't reply in a long time," gaining over 320,400 notes in six years (shown below). This is the earliest available meme to use the image.

Spread

The image spread across social media over the following years, used to describe the act of checking if something or someone is still alive or relevant. On October 13th, 2019, Instagram^[4] page @gamingzar posted a version of the meme with the Fortnite cover over the dead body, implying the game is dead, gaining over 27,400 likes in two years (shown below).

On January 19th, 2020, Twitter^[3] user @NFL_Memes posted a version of the meme about the Packers NFL team being dead, gaining over 5,100 likes and 1,000 retweets in a year (shown below, left). On April 27th, Redditor u/avigyan_33 posted a meme to /r/memes referencing the unknown status of Kim Jong-Un's health at the time, gaining over 28,100 upvotes in roughly a year (shown below, right).

On March 12th, 2021, Instagram^[5] page @soccergrlprobs posted a meme about high school fitness tests using the format, gaining over 25,000 likes in six months (shown below).

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References