About

Norm Macdonald Learning About Hitler is a viral video of the late comedian Norm Macdonald humorously pretending as though he'd just discovered the atrocities committed by Adolf Hitler for the first time. An image of Macdonald from the clip went on to become a prevalent image associated with jokes in which a person pretends they're just hearing about how a well-known villain of history or popular culture is bad.

Origin

The clip comes from the fifth episode of Macdonald's podcast Norm Macdonald Live, which aired on April 23rd, 2013.^[1] On April 20th, 2020, YouTuber Righteous Minds Comedy posted the highest-viewed reupload of the clip, gaining over 1 million views in three years (shown below).

Spread

The joke, particularly a line when Macdonald says "I didn't even know he was sick!" about Hitler, was widely remembered after his death in September 2021.^[2] References to the clip when a person jokingly pretends to be surprised to discover the negative traits of a well-known villain of popular culture or history was popularized in early 2023.

For example, on January 15th, 2023, Twitter user @lib_crusher^[3] used it in response to a viral post about how Hitler was supposedly a pedophile, gaining over 2,700 retweets and 5,800 likes in five months (shown below, left). On May 11th, Twitter user @conan_esq^[4] posted a joke about Superman lore with the image, gaining over 150 retweets and 2,600 likes in two months (shown below, right).

The image saw increased use in July 2023 in relation to the Napoleon was a TERRIBLE person copypasta. On July 11th, Twitter user @tlologn^[5] posted the image in response to the original tweet, gaining over 2,600 retweets and 27,000 likes in two weeks (shown below, left). The same day, user @maceahwindu^[6] posted it with a variation on the copypasta about Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars, gaining over 80 retweets and 1,800 likes in a similar timeframe (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References