About

"More Like 'Under New Management'" is a quote from the 2010 film Megamind. The scene has been used as an object-labeling meme for a situation where someone believes a liberator has granted them freedom, only to learn that the liberator reveals that they are simply a new oppressor.

Origin

In the film, the superhero Tighten (Jonah Hill) has just chased off the supervillain Megamind (Will Ferrell), and the city's mayor and citizens come up to him, rejoicing that Tighten has freed them from Megamind's evils. However, Tighten then reveals that he intends to be just as evil as Megamind. In the context of the film, this signals a very important tonal shift because Megamind created Tighten to be a symbol for good that could stop him, while instead creating a much worse situation for everyone. The video of this moment was uploaded to YouTube^[1] by the channel Alex The Lightning Hedgehog, gaining 2.8 million views in four years (shown below).

Mayor: "Thank you, thank you! Tighten has freed us!"
Tighten: "Oh, I wouldn't say “freed.” More like “under new management.”"

The first known instance of the meme was posted to the subreddit r/dankmemes on May 9th, 2018, by Redditor /u/gingerwitasoul_,^[2] gaining 5,800 points in six months (shown below).

Spread

Under New Management maintained a consistent but moderate usage throughout the following years. A blank template for the meme was posted to /r/MemeTemplatesOfficial^[5] on October 2nd, 2019, by u/lilsmore, gaining 133 upvotes in six months, allowing additional users to create memes with the format.

One of the more prominent instances was posted in the /r/dankmemes^[3] subreddit by Redditor xxcrazyfeministxx on November 20th, 2019, gaining 26,400 upvotes in six months (shown below).

Another popular instance was posted on the /r/historymemes^[4] subreddit by Redditor desertorange on November 9th, 2019, gaining 35,500 upvotes in six months (shown below).

Various Examples

Template

Search interest

External References