About

Penis Gnome is a fictional character referred to in numerous memes implied to steal one's penis. After appearing in a Bad Luck Brian meme in the late 2010s, the character took off on sites like iFunny and Reddit's /r/dogelore, among other communities online.

Origin

The phrase "penis gnomes" comes from a memorable Bad Luck Brian meme. It is unknown when it was first posted, however, it was uploaded to Know Your Meme^[2] on May 29th, 2019, by user Adam, who sourced it from a Tumblr^[7] post that has since been deleted.

Spread

On February 11th, 2020, Redditor Rooster_Tamer posted a meme to the subreddit /r/dogelore^[1] featuring the "Penis Gnome," a character who appears to attempt to steal one's penis. The post gained over 12,000 upvotes in nearly five years.

On March 4th, Redditor Gustav_Von_Doge posted another "Penis Gnome" meme that gained over 2,500 upvotes in a similar timeframe.^[6]

Around the same time, posts about a "penis gnome" hoax appeared in /r/msu, the subreddit for Michigan State University. On February 18th, 2020, Redditor lileggplant asked about the urban legend of a "penis gnome in Berkley Hall."^[3]

On September 19th, 2021, in a separate thread, Redditor Publius_Seven said the urban legend had been around since at least 2018.^[4]

The phrase and character continued to be used in memes in the early 2020s. For example, on October 20th, 2023, Twitter / X user @tulpapilled^[5] used it in a meme that gained over 390 retweets and 6,200 likes in one year.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References