About

An Old Man Took His Phone To A Repair Shop refers to a series of exploitable Comedy Cemetery style memes that show a photo of a sad-looking, wizened old man alongside a short story in which he tries to get his phone repaired only to be told there's nothing wrong with it. The man then asks, "with tears in his eyes," "then why don't ever my children call me." The grammatical inconsistencies and the cheesy Boomer-bait nature of the image prompted internet users to make jokes that altered the final "punchline," often to show the man berating the repairman for not fixing his phone or asking another question entirely.

Origin

The original story about an old man feeling sad because his children wouldn't call him was posted to the Facebook^[1] page "No One Cares" on February 14th, 2018, where it gathered over 27,000 reactions in seven years. The original image read:

An old man took his phone to a repair shop,
Repairer: Nothing is wrong.
Old Man with tears in his eyes said:
Then why don't ever my children call me.

The image was reposted by several sincere Comedy Cemetery style accounts, giving it a sepia tint and moldy or low-resolution aesthetic.
The earliest meme edits of the image typically cropped it to remove the last sentence, leaving the punchline as the grammatically incoherent "then why don't ever my."

A July 13th, 2024, post on the subreddit /r/197 by Redditor^[2] /u/IEnjoyBaconCheese, gathered over 1,000 upvotes in seven months. The post may have been sourced from a now-deleted Tumblr account @dovv, gathering over 4,000 notes in a similar timeframe.^[3]

Spread

On July 16th, 2024, Redditor^[4] /u/LemonOwl_ made a post to the subreddit /r/antimemes, showing the punchline of the image edited to read, "Okay, thank you." The post gathered over 1,000 upvotes in seven months.

On July 18th, Twitter / X^[5] user @flowerarcana posted a version of the meme in which the repairman says, "Nothing is wrong," leading the old man to reply, "Fix my phone n----." The post gathered over 68,000 likes and remains one of the most prevalent versions of the meme.

X^[6] user @seventeenblades reposted the image of December 21st, 2024, writing, "this actually might be the funniest image on the planet," and inspiring several meme edits, including a December 22nd Kingdom Hearts meme featuring Xehanort posted by @KingdomHeartGuy,^[7] gathering over 1,000 likes in two months.

On February 4th, 2025, X^[8] user @G4M3R_R4G3 posted a version of the meme edited to feature a J.D. Vance Portrait Edit, gathering over 97,000 likes in two days.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References