About

Mads Mikkelsen Choking Fans refers to various photographs of actor Mads Mikkelsen mock-choking his fans, typically with his hands around their necks, during conventions and meet-and-greets or other events. The earliest known photograph of Mikkelsen pretending to choke a fan comes from the 2019 Hollywood Collector's Convention in Tokyo, Japan, and went viral in 2021, inspiring some redraws, memes and artwork based on it.

The image, along with other images of Mikkelsen pretending to choke fans, continued to spread over the following years, inspiring discourse online. It has been reported that Mikkelsen is requested to do this pose because of his roles as villains or evil characters, with some also suggesting the requests come from women who find Mikkelsen attractive.

Origin

In November 2019, the Hollywood Collector's Convention took place in Tokyo, Japan. Actor Mads Mikkelsen was in attendance as part of a meet-and-greet. Earlier that year, Death Stranding was released, which features Mikkelsen as one of the antagonists, Clifford Unger.

As early as January 19th, 2021, a photo from the convention of Mikkelsen pretending to choke a fan in a Death Stranding T-shirt started circulating online.

On that day, Redditor Massive-Pattern-7369 posted an edit of the photo to the /r/ChainsawMan^[1] subreddit, editing the fan to look like the character Power, garnering over 100 upvotes in six months. This is the earliest known upload of the photo, despite it being an edit of the original. It is unclear who originally posted the photo.

The earliest known upload of the original was posted later on January 19th, 2021, by X^[2] / Twitter user @francizviktor, alongside another original redraw of the photo referencing Chansaw Man, garnering over 1,000 likes in the same span of time.

Spread

The image of Mads Mikkelsen choking the fan went viral over the following years, with additional photos of Mikkelsen mock-choking fans also being uploaded online.

On March 6th, 2021, a 9GAG^[3] user posted the original photo next to another photo, garnering over 2,100 votes in four years.

On March 11th, X^[4] user @so_mad_so_funny posted a Russian meme using the image, garnering over 7,000 likes in four years.

On June 22nd, 2023, the original choking photo was reposted to the /r/popculturechat^[5] subreddit by a now-deleted Redditor, garnering over 3,700 upvotes in two years.

On June 2nd, 2024, Instagram^[6] user welcome.jpeg reposted several photos of Mikkelsen doing the choking post to over 110,000 likes in a year.

On June 3rd, X^[7] user @knveth posted a compilation of several photos of Mikkelsen mock-choking fans, writing, "you might be cool but you’ll never be mads mikkelsen choking fans during meet and greets cool," gaining over 240 likes in a year.

On January 19th, 2025, X^[7] user @creepydotorg posted a similar compilation, writing, "Mads Mikkelsen choking fans during fan meet and greets 💀," garnering over 4,400 likes in 11 months.

On June 2nd, X^[8] user @Ranger084__ posted a comic where she asks Mikkelsen to choke her during a photo-op, garnering over 90,000 likes in six months.

On June 3rd, the same user added a compilation image of many fans getting choked as part of the X^[9] thread.

On December 7th, 2025, X^[10] user @catiescos posted a photo of herself getting mock-choked by Mikkelsen, writing, "It actually felt really good," garnering over 72,000 likes and 2,600 reposts in a day.

Later that day, X^[11] user @LookAtMyMeat1 quoted the post, writing, "I've never seen an actor be ok with doing this stuff at Western cons," garnering over 63,000 likes in a day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References