About

NASA Celebration Photograph refers to a photo made in 2012 of NASA scientists and employees celebrating the successful landing of the Curiosity rover on the surface of Mars. The photograph, which depicts elated NASA staff hugging each other and laughing, has been used as a reaction image since 2016, later gaining prominence as a caption format in the 2020s.

Origin

On August 6th, 2012, the Mars exploration rover Curiosity, launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), landed on the planet. On that day, a photograph depicting NASA staff laughing and hugging each other in celebration of the successful landing, taken by Brian van der Brug for Associated Press, appeared in multiple publications, including The New York Times^[1] and Boston Globe^[2] (shown below).

The earliest found use of image as a reaction meme is an April 25th, 2016, post by Redditor johnny_moist. The post, which referenced the premiere of season 6 of Game of Thrones, garnered over 90 upvotes in the /r/funny^[3] subreddit in six months (shown below).

Spread

The photo did not achieve widespread popularity as a reaction image meme until the early 2020s.

On May 7th, 2020, Redditor 600Wings posted a Government Agent Watching Me meme based on the image in the /r/memes^[4] subreddit, where it gained over 55,000 upvotes in five years (shown below). A same-day repost in the /r/teenagers^[5] subreddit received an additional 47,000 upvotes in the same period.

In the following year, more image caption memes based on the format went viral in /r/memes and other subreddits.

For example, on December 22nd, 2020, Redditor tushar-gunner posted a meme that received over 64,000 upvotes in /r/memes^[6] in five years (shown below).

Following the initial spread on Reddit, the image achieved popularity on X, Instagram and other platforms. For example, on April 16th, 2023, X^[7] user @KUcoolkid shared a caption meme that received over 1,300 reposts and 8,500 likes in two years.

The image maintained its prevalence as a reaction and a caption format through the first half of the 2020s.

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References