Obi-Wan Kenobi Binoculars

About

Obi-Wan Kenobi Binoculars, also known as Obi-Wan Kenobi Looking Through Binoculars, is an exploitable meme format taken from the first trailer of the Disney+ TV series Obi-Wan Kenobi, set to release on May 25th, 2022. The format depicts actor Ewan McGregor as the Star Wars Jedi Master Kenobi peering through a set of binoculars at the young Luke Skywalker on the planet Tatooine. The meme is typically used as part of either a one-, two- or three-panel meme template in which Obi-Wan is looking at something through the scope, often something unexpected, and him reacting to it — though edited video variations also exist.

Origin

On March 9th, 2022, the Star Wars UK YouTube^[1] channel uploaded the first teaser trailer for the Kenobi series that showed off several scenes, including the shot of Kenobi looking into binoculars at Luke Skywalker from far away, receiving over 500,000 views in less than 24 hours (shown below).

Due to the timing of the series technically making it part of the prequels, the subreddit /r/PrequelMemes instantly started scouring the trailer for anything that could be used as a meme, with a scene in which Obi-Wan looks through binoculars at a young Luke Skywalker being the chosen target. The first meme to use it, also ironically, was a post made about how others were searching through the trailer for memes that was uploaded to Reddit by Redditor^[2] TheWolfAssassin on March 9th, 2022, gaining 5,800 upvotes in roughly 24 hours (shown below).

Spread

Other Redditors on the /r/PrequelMemes subreddit quickly adopted the new format on March 9th, 2022, expanding on the original meme by not just using the one picture of Kenobi looking through the binoculars, but including a view of what he's looking at and his reaction to it. For example, on March 10th, Redditor johnle1n^[3] used all three elements of the template to create a meme referencing Anakin Skywalker through Luke's mannerisms, earning 4,000 upvotes in 10 hours (shown below).

The first picture of the template was also used in a meme format playing off Ewan McGregor's previous appearances on film, with it being a bit of a twist on the meme What Do Your Elf Eyes See? in which Obi-Wan was asked what he was looking at. The meme was uploaded to the subreddit /r/PrequelMemes by Redditor^[4] rotanitsarcorp_yzal1 and received 16,000 upvotes in less than 24 hours (shown below).

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References