About

Popcorn GIFs are animated GIF images featuring looped clips of people and animals eating popcorn, which are often used as reaction images online to indicate a feeling of amusement while witnessing a drama or argument unfold, in a similar vein to the expression Dis Gon B Gud.

Origin

On September 2nd, 2007, YTMND user Chiyoumen created a page featuring a GIF of Michael Jackson eating popcorn in a movie theater with the 1983 R&B song "Popcorn Love" by New Edition playing in the background (shown below).^[1]

The GIF comes from a scene in the music video for the 1982 pop song "Thriller," in which Jackson is shown delightfully eating popcorn while watching a horror movie in a theater (shown below).

Spread

Between 2007 and 2009, three additional YTMND pages featuring Jackson eating popcorn were created.^[2] On May 8th, 2011, the Jackson GIF was submitted in a post titled "Anytime you see a Facebook argument happening, post this .gif" to the /r/funny^[7] subreddit, where it gained over 1,400 votes (81% upvoted) prior to being archived. On May 22nd, BodyBuilding Forums^[8] member eXcelerate submitted a thread containing various GIFs of people eating popcorn (shown below). The following day, the GIF database popcorngif.com^[9] was created. On March 9th, 2012, the /r/popcorngif^[5] subreddit was launched for GIF submissions of people eating popcorn.

Notable Examples

I Came Here to Read the Comments

An image macro series based off the popcorn gifs uses the caption "I came here to read the comments" to indicate a curious amusement with an online discussion (shown below). An entry for macros was submitted to Meme Generator on April 3rd, 2014, which accumulated upwards of 9,000 submissions in the next year.^[6]

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"Dis Gon Be Good"

Dis Gon B Gud ("This Is Gonna Be Good") is an expression associated with a reaction GIF of a man enthusiastically opening up a fold-up chair and getting ready to sit down for a viewing. Both the phrase and a variety of fitting reaction GIFs are used in forums or comment threads to denote that the poster is going to enjoy watching a complex argument or discussion topic unfold.

Search Interest

External References