Never Goon Minions

About

Incel Minions, also known as Chud Minions, refers to a set of AI-generated memes imagining Minions as incels, chuds and alt-right extremists. Within the set, images of Minions wearing black T-shirts with the slogan Never Goon on them achieved virality on social media in late 2023.

Origin

On October 3rd, 2023, X^[1][2] user @1611bible started posting AI-generated images of Minions, imagining them in various offensive scenarios, such as depicting them as Nazi soldiers and alt-right extremists (examples shown below, left and right).

On October 6th and 7th, 2023, @1611bible posted^[3][4] three AI-generated images of an incel minion wearing a TFW no gf shirt (shown below, left). On October 12th, the user posted^[5] the first image of a Minion in a black T-shirt with the slogan "Never goon," referencing gooning. The post (shown below, right). received over 60 reposts and 840 likes in four months.

Spread

In the following weeks, @1611bible proceeded to post multiple AI-generated images of Minions wearing the shirt. For example, a post shared on October 23rd, 2023, garnered over 30 reposts and 250 likes on X^[6] in four months (shown below, left).

On October 31st, the user posted^[7] an image that received over 20 reposts and 230 likes in the same period (shown below, center). On November 22nd, @1611bible posted^[8] an AI-generated image of Donald Trump wearing the shirt which gained over 170 reposts and 2,100 likes in three months (shown below, right).

The images achieved further spread online through viral reposts on iFunny, Reddit, X and Instagram. For example, on November 3rd, 2023, Instagram^[9] user e.invader.v2 made a repost that garnered over 244,000 likes in four months.

On November 26th, right-wing activist Jack Posobiec reposted the image of Donald Trump in a "Never goon" T-shirt, with the post gaining 110 reposts and over 1,200 likes on X^[10] in three months. On December 25th, iFunny^[11] user Cult_Of_May made a repost that garnered over 3,200 smiles on the platform in two months.

The images saw further spread online in 2024, being used as reactions and as independent posts, often presented as pics that go hard.

Video Versions

On May 4th, 2024, TikTok^[12] user @kinderross posted a video edit based on one of the images posted by @1611bible. The edit (shown below) received over 1.2 million views and 161,000 likes in two months.

The video inspired a trend, with user creating more edits of Never Goon images (example^[13] shown below, left). The trend developed further following the public release of the Luma AI's Dream Machine video generation tool, with users turning still Never Goon images into videos (example^[14] shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References