About

Poopenfarten is a made-up slang word purported to be the German word for "toilet." The word originated in a meme in early 2020, though it did lead to some confusion online about whether the word actually was the word for "toilet" in German, which it is not. It then proceeded to spread to other social media platforms like Reddit in the following years.

Origin

On April 12th, 2020, Twitter / X user @derangedgfliker^[1] posted an image from the 2002 Spider-Man film depicting Willem Dafoe with the caption, "germans when you call it a 'toilet
instead of 'the poopenfarten.'" The post was ultimately deleted (shown below). The actual German word for toilet is "toilette."

Spread

The tweet led to some confusion as to whether the actual German word for toilet was "poopenfarten," as questions asking that appeared on Quora^[2] and Reddit.^[3] The original meme led to some variations as well.

For example, on February 12th, 2021, Twitter user @dududoodle^[4] posted a content aware scale version of the meme, gaining over 30 retweets and 770 likes in three years (shown below).

The word also notably appeared in an edit poking fun at Cr1TiKaL. On August 18th, 2023, a Redditor posted a parody of Cr1TiKaL in which the YouTuber discussed "Huge Poopenfarten Drama," gaining over 4,400 points in eight months in the /r/coaxedintoasnafu^[5] subreddit (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References