About

Orson Welles Shrimp Fried Rice is a copypasta and image macro meme using a picture of American director, actor and writer George Orson Welles as the author of a quote in which he alleges "sea roaches" are the ones who cooked the fried rice, directly referencing the You're Telling Me a Shrimp Fried This Rice? meme. The image and phrase were popularized on Reddit in late 2022, spreading to TikTok and YouTube in the following years as a voiceover of Welles reading the line went viral online.

Origin

On October 4th, 2022, Redditor @condorre^[1] uploaded one of the earliest known versions of the image macro featuring an image of the American director Orson Welles having dinner and wine with the text, "A shrimp? Am I to accept, as God's own truth, that the sea's very own abominable and chittering roach, was the one who took wok into hand and fried this rice?" The post (seen below) amassed over 24,000 upvotes and 135 comments in two years.

A shrimp? Am I to accept, as God's own truth, that the sea's very own abominable and chittering roach, was the one who took wok into hand and fried this rice?

Spread

Other variations of the meme appeared on Reddit in late 2022, such as a post to the /r/DestinyMemes^[4] subreddit on December 20th, 2022, by Redditor OfficialDGD referencing a character from the video game Destiny 2 alongside the copypasta, receiving over 8,600 upvotes and 60 comments in roughly two years (shown below).

Over the next two years, more parodies and memes were posted on the internet using the Orson Welles Shrimp Fried Rice copypasta. For example, on February 3rd, 2023, YouTube^[2] user @whatzittooya9012 posted a video dubbing Welles's shrimp fried rice quote (seen below), which garnered roughly 2,200 views and 100 likes in a year.

On November 18th, 2022, TikTok^[3] user @voiceturtle posted a video reading the Orson Welles Shrimp Fried Rice copypasta (seen below), amassing more than 451,000 plays and 81,000 likes in two years.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References