About

Man Breaking Chains or Man Breaking Free is a stock photo of a man breaking shackles at sunset with the chain snapping above his head. In 2022, the reaction picture gained popularity as an image caption format, typically being used to celebrate gaining freedom from certain burdens.

Origin

On April 30th, 2017, Shutterstock user Guitarfoto posted the earliest known copy of the image showing a silhouette breaking his chains.^[6]

On August 16th, 2022, Twitter^[1] user @FRKSCHEEKS posted the earliest known meme based on a stock image of a man breaking shackles, captioning it, "POV: you just dropped Chrom for Roy." The meme, a Super Smash Bros. Ultimate joke, gained over 60 retweets and 1,300 likes in seven months (shown below).

Spread

On October 26th, 2022, Twitter^[2] user @upblissed captioned the image, "my ex jus died in a car crash," with the tweet gaining over 1,600 retweets and 32,000 likes in five months (shown below, left). On December 19th, @upblissed again tweeted^[3] the image, captioning it, "SHE F--KING DIED." The post gained over 2,300 retweets and 56,600 likes in four months (shown below, right).

Following the post, the image format achieved widespread virality on Twitter as it became a meme used to celebrate getting rid of certain burdens, most often ironically. For example, on January 4th, 2023, Twitter^[4] user @thaboyjozu posted a meme that gained over 240 retweets and 4,000 likes in two months (shown below, left). On January 18th, Twitter^[5] user @slvppy made a tweet that received over 1,100 retweets and 24,500 likes in a similar timeframe (shown below, right).

The reaction image maintained prevalence on Twitter in February and March 2023.

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References