About

Officer Balls refers to a catchphrase and an exploitable scene from the 2009 videogame Batman: Arkham Asylum. The scene shows Batman repeating the name of an Arkham guard named "Officer Boles," causing the Joker to burst out laughing. In late 2023, jokes about the scene where Redditors switch out "Boles" for "Balls" began making the rounds on /r/OkBuddyArkham and /r/BatmanArkham, resulting in various fan videos and edits. The meme is also invoked in response to someone typing out a laugh in all caps, in reference to the Joker's laughing fit.

Origin

The scene comes from the 2009 videogame Batman: Arkham Asylum, which was first released on August 25th, 2009 for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.^[1] In the game, a cutscene (shown below) plays in which Batman confronts the Joker through a security monitor. However, Joker reveals that he's taken Commissioner Gordon hostage with the help of Officer Boles, a name which Batman says as he's watching the footage. The name sounds unfortunately similar to "Officer Balls", and Joker bursts into laughter afterward.

On July 23rd, 2021, an unknown Redditor^[7] reposted the cutscene to /r/OkBuddyArkham, gathering over 500 points on a post captioned "Officer Balls." YouTuber^[2] That Guy Choco reposted to clip on the same day, crediting the subreddit for starting the meme.

Spread

The /r/BatmanArkham subreddit saw limited discussions about Officer Boles A.K.A. Officer Balls prior to 2023, with /u/EdicaranFauna^[3] posting a Ligma meme on February 9th, 2022, gathering over 700 upvotes in two years (shown below). On December 1st, 2022, Redditor^[4] /u/CT-4426 reposted the cutscene, gathering over 500 upvotes in two years.

Memes about Officer Balls began to gain considerable traction in late 2023. On November 4th, 2023, Redditor u/AlertSpirit2453^[5] reposted a TikTok from a now-deleted account, showing Batman repeating the phrase "Officer Balls" and the Joker laughing at it. The post gathered over 9,000 points in a year.

Officer balls byu/AlertSpirit2453 inBatmanArkham

On February 19th, 2024, Redditor^[6] u/DrJekyllX posted a video captioned, "Multilingual Officer Balls," showing Batman and the Joker repeating the "Officer Balls" exchange in various accents and languages. The post gathered over 2,000 points in nine months.

Multilingual Officer Balls byu/DrJekyllX inBatmanArkham

On February 23rd, 2024, YouTuber^[8] TheHypedScoot posted a reanimated version of the scene, gathering over 215,000 views in eight months.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References