About

Meet Potential Man is an exploitable meme that typically shows a character from a television show or comic whom creators perceive as underachieving or overhyped by their fanbases, thus labelled as "Potential Man." These characters are often edited onto an image of Superman surrounded by a list of their perceived failures. Common phrases in these memes include "if and whens but never is" and "Give me liberty, give me fire, give me X or I retire."​ The original meme showed the character Megumi Fushiguro from the anime and manga series Jujutsu Kaisen. Later iterations depict characters like Toshiro Hitsugaya from Bleach, Pannacotta Fugo from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and Rock Lee from Naruto.

Origin

Memes attaching the suffix -man to highlight a person or character's demerits have existed prior to the "Potential Man" meme, as seen in this March 16th, 2021, post on X^[5] featuring soccer players and their perceived faults.

On November 21st, 2023, X^[1] user @MugenKampaWorks posted a tweet with a meme that read, "Meet Potential Man!" The image showed the Jujutsu Kaisen character Megumi Fushiguro edited onto Superman's body alongside various examples of how Megumi is always pitched as a potentially powerful character, as opposed to an actually powerful one. The post gathered over 22,000 likes in two years.

The reasons listed include "He has the potential to rival Gojo," "His completed domain will go crazy," and "He'll hit Black Flash too eventually." Other lines mentioned in the meme are "'if' and 'when' but never 'is,'" and "Give me liberty, give me fire, give me middle schoolers or I retire."

Spread

Other internet users latched onto the "Potential Man" meme and edited it to reflect the characters they believe are overhyped by fans despite not having any noteworthy achievements.

On November 22nd, X^[2] user @Busham0 tweeted an image of Toshiro Hitsugaya from Bleach, alongside text that read, "He's just inexperienced," and "His Bankai will be unbeatable when completed," calling him a "Potential Man" and gathering over 1,000 likes in two years.

On December 12th, 2023, X^[3] user @JobberGodot shared a similar "Potential Man" meme about the Gold Experience Requiem stand from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. The meme contained lines like, "Give me liberty, give me fire, give me fodder Jotaro Victim Diavolo or I retire," and listed off all the ways in which people consider the stand to be the most powerful in the JoJo universe. The post gathered over 1,600 likes in two years.

On October 13th, 2024, Redditor /u/AntiMatterLite shared a version of the meme featuring Pannacotta Fugo from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure to the subreddit /r/ShitPostCrusaders,^[4] calling him a "Potential Man" and gathering over 1,200 upvotes in nine months.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References