Own the School Year Like a Hero

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About

Own the School Year Like a Hero refers to a sign placed above a Walmart gun display case which widely circulated online in mid August 2017, leading the multinational retailer to publicly apologize.

Origin

On August 9th, 2017, Twitter user @OMGItsBirdman^[6] tweeted a photograph of a Walmart rifle display with the sign "Own the School Year Like a Hero" placed on top (shown below). Within 24 hours, the tweet gained over 63,000 likes and 31,300 retweets.

OWN THE SCHOOL YEAR LIKE A HERO edera Law Anthony @OMGltsBirdman Followw Explain this @Walmart 3:18 PM - Aug 9, 2017 842 31,302 63,881

Spread

Shortly after the tweet began circulating, the @Walmart^[7] Twitter feed posted an apology, claiming they "removed the sign as soon as we found out about it" (shown below). Meanwhile, the photograph was submitted to 4chan's /pol/ board, where it received more than 300 replies within 24 hours.^[8]

Walmart @Walmart 23h Replying to @DesiJed This is horrible. We removed the sign as soon as we found out about it. We're so sorry for this mistake. -Dean 丶'、 Walmart Walmart Replying to @Walmart @Desied To clarify, the store manager at the location reported to us confirmed that there was no such sign currently posted. -Dean

Also on August 9th, the photograph reached the front page of the /r/funny,^[9] /r/dankmemes,^[3] /r/ShitAmericansSay^[4] and /r/facepalm^[5] subreddits. In the comment sections, many Redditors speculated that the sign was placed on top of the display by the person who took the photograph. Meanwhile, Redditor SpongeDot uploaded the picture with a stock photo of a father and son with the caption "Son, summers over and it's time for you to pick up the family business" to /r/MemeEconomy^[1] (shown below, left). The following day, Redditor Magenta_Nazgul1 submitted the image with the caption "What is the best pencil for school? help" to /r/MemeEconomy^[2] (shown below, right).