About

Nerf or Nothing refers to a series of image macros based on the 1990s Nerf toy brand tagline "It's Nerf or Nothin'." As it is used online, the catchphrase uses the implication that there is only one option, regardless of the debate, Nerf.

Origin

After being acquired by Hasbro^[1] and Parker Brothers in 1991, the Nerf underwent a rebranding to more action-based sales pitch, following the success of the Blast-a-Matic line of toys. In addition to expanding their line of toy guns, and moving away from the foam sports balls that made the company successful, they dropped their classic tagline "Get Real. Get Nerf." for "It's Nerf or Nothin'." The earliest examples of the line being used in a commercial is from a series of 1993 ads featuring Final Destination actor Devon Sawa.

The earliest example of "Nerf or Nothin'" being used as a meme, comes from the Tumblr ^[7] account starwarrior. On October 25th, 2011, they posted a two-panel image macro (shown below). In the top panel, Star Wars character Princess Leia says the famous line from The Empire Strikes Back, "You half-witted, scruffy looking nerfherder!" The bottom panel shows Star Wars character Han Solo holding a nerf gun with the text, "It's nerf or nothing." The post received more than 1,200 notes in six years.

Spread

On August 17th, 2016, Twitter user @dgnarly^[3] posted a variation of the 'If My Girl Drowning' Snowclone, which used Nerf and "Nerf or Nothin'" as the focus. The tweet (shown below, left) was later shared by prominent meme accounts @FreeMemeKids^[4] and @memeprovier,^[5] garnering more than 7,000 retweets and 14,000 likes, cumulatively.

One week later, the Instagram^[6] account @dankflavouredmemes posted the snowclone with a stock photo of a man in a suit with a nerf gun and a woman to his right and left, respectively. The post (shown below, right), received more than 1,000 likes in 11 months.

Six months later, on January 13th, 2017 Instagram^[8] user @xomega_pimp posted an image macro of a man's silhouette at a fork in the road (shown below). On one side of the fork is a nerf gun and on the other side is a woman. The meme is captioned "Her: if you keep up with this stupid addiction i'm leaving you Me: whispers it's nerf or nothing." The post received more than 12,300 likes.

On February 3rd, youthedebates^[8] user anon45184480 posted a "Expanding Brain" variant with the "Nerf or Nothing" slogan (shown below), choosing Nerf over the machine guns AK47 and M16. Two months later, Instagram user @gaming_p0sts shared the meme and received more than 40,000 likes.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References