About

Pimples? Zero is a six-panel call-and-response exploitable image series based on an skin-care advertisement. The meme features two models asking "Pimples?" and "Blackheads?" and, in each case, another model responds, "Zero." In the fifth panel, however, the meme's author replaces the model's question with a humorous or absurd phrase.

Origin

On October 20th, 2018, the skin-care brand Maxi-Peel Zero released a new advertising campaign on Facebook. ^[1] Within three months, the post received more than 6,600 reactions, 350 comments, 150 shares and 229,000 views (shown below).

The earliest available variation of the advertisement was posted by Facebook^[2] user @HG545 on December 1st, 2018. However, the image features a watermark reading @frncs, so it can be assumed the image dates back earlier (shown below).

Spread

Over the next several months, variants of the meme could be found online. For example, on December 5th, 2018, Twitter ^[3] user @yoitzching posted a variation of the meme (shown below, left).

On January 16th, 2019, Redditor MehdiMedMed posted a version in which the words "My will to live" are in the fifth panel in the /r/MemeEconomy subreddit. ^[4] The post received more than 220 points (93% upvoted) in less than two weeks (shown below, center).

The following week, Redditor nacrosian posted a version that has the words "The number of funny memes that use this fucking format" in the fifth position in the /r/dankmemes subreddit.^[5] Within 24 hours, the post received more than 20,000 points (93% upvoted) and 185 comments (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References