About

Moomin Holding Knife is a reaction image macros featuring two screen captures from the 1991 Moomin television series of two Moomin characters brandishing a knife and closing a knife, respectively. Typically, online, these images are used to express one becoming enraged before calming down.

Origin

The Moomin Japanese-Finnish-Dutch television series, which is based on the Finnish comic strip and book series, aired from October 10th, 1991 through March 26th, 1992.^[1] The earliest known usage of the Moomin putting the knife away was published on the Russian social media website Pikabu ^[2] on January 23rd, 2015 by user LichOdinson (shown below, left).

On May 23rd, 2019, Tumblr ^[6] user snappingsweater posted the image of Moomintroll holding a knife. The post received more than 890 notes in about one month (shown below, right).

Spread

On March 11th, 2019, Twitter ^[3] user @charlubby posted the image of the Moomin closing the knife with the caption "my boss saw my knife moomin drawing and she got really distressed, saying moomin 'would never have a weapon' so i showed her this image and she just went 'nooooo' super quietly." The post received more than27,000 likes and 6,000 retweets in less than six months (shown below, left).

Months later, on June 6th, Tumblr^[7] user snipersnufkin posted the Moomintroll image next to an image of the Moomin character Snufkin also holding a knife. The post received more than 1,400 notes in one month (shown below, center).

On June 23rd, Twitter^[4] user @eccentricmarion posted the images side-by-side with the caption "typing an entire rant and deciding not to press tweet." The post received more than 500,000 likes and 167,000 retweets in less than one week (shown below, right).

The following day, Twitter^[5] user @nalaeanaiswhite tweeted the two images with the caption "'I wish Rihanna would put out new music.. But I know she’s doing her thing.'" The post received more than 124,000 likes and 30,000 retweets in two days (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References