About

Meme Heaven is a photoshop meme illustrating the induction of a recently deceased subject into the afterlife, set to the background image of a stairway to the Heaven. Since being introduced in July 2016, the exploitable image has been used to commemorate the passing of famous individuals, including celebrities and fictional characters.

Origin

On August 12th, 2010, an image of cloud staircase leading into the sky appeared in an article posted by Meditationcenter.com^[1].

The precise origin of the first meme using the image is unknown. On July 5th, 2016, Me.me^[2] scraped a now-deleted Facebook post^[3] in which Harambe the Gorilla, killed in Cincinnati zoo several weeks prior, appeared on top of a cloud staircase surrounded by eight deceased celebrities, with Cecil the Lion appearing in the background.

On July 5th, 2016, Twitter^[4] user @dudethings4guys posted the image. The tweet gained over 100 retweets within 2.5 years. On July 9th, Tumblr^[5] user browsedankmemes posted the image, gaining over 7,500 likes and reblogs in 2.5 years.

Spread

In 2016, the image was used numerous times to commemorate other notable deaths. Several examples featured non-living entities or people who were still alive joining the "heaven" after their metaphorical "death"^[6].

On September 15th, 2016, Twitter^[7] user @SamuelGrubbs1 posted a video edit of the meme, garnering over 540,000 views in two years.

More versions of the image appeared in 2017 and 2018, with passing of notable celebrities and meme characters often followed by edits of the template. Newer examples of the image often featured additional characters which made their appearance in prior posts, expanding the template.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References