About

Oreo Smith is a character in memes based on what appears to be a school photograph of an unidentified young man with short black hair and a mustache. The photograph is often flattened and widened unrealistically or placed in unexpected contexts as an exploitable, particularly in Red Circle Perpetrators contexts. The image also shares some of the same features as memes in the larger goofy ahh meme movement, such as Quandale Dingle.

Origin

The first known post referencing Oreo Smith was a video collage shared to TikTok on September 30th, 2022, which included a Red Circle Perpetrators reference alongside the image of the man (seen below). It was posted by user @David_dat_legend and received almost 600 views and over 20 likes in the course of three weeks.^[1]

Spread

On October 3rd, 2022, the subreddit /r/oreosmith then started and accumulated over 200 members in two weeks.^[2] Various memes featuring Oreo Smith were shared to the subreddit, merging the character with preexisting meme techniques, such as Red Circle Perpetrators in a meme posted by /u/how_old_is_fifteen_really on October 15th, 2022, earning 19 upvotes in a day (seen below). The meme was also posted to /r/balkans_irl and /r/okbuddyretard on the same day, earning around 50 upvotes in a similar timeframe.^[3]

The /r/oreosmith subreddit also saw the meme used as a kind of Advice Animal, with the young Oreo Smith's face paired with an emotion felt by a "you." One such example was posted by Redditor /u/HawzTV on October 13th, 2022, earning 13 likes in four days (seen below).^[4] Other memes combined Oreo Smith with additional formats from iconic memes. Many of the earliest posts were made by Redditor /u/nugget_eater_7298 and used Oreo Smith as a reaction image]

The meme also spread to YouTube in mid-October 2022. For example, YouTuber Dake shared a video featuring Oreo Smith on October 13th, earning over 37,000 views in three days (shown below).^[5]

Various Examples

External References