Praying Skeleton / Death Prayer / Grim Reaper Praying

About

Praying Skeleton, also known as Death Prayer and Grim Reaper Praying, is an image macro meme format of a cloaked or hooded skeleton figure (resembling Death or the Grim Reaper) praying with a chaplet on its hands. The image was uploaded to the internet in March 2013 and started to be used as a meme in 2016, often accompanied by top-and-bottom captions.

Origin

The original image of the Death Prayer^[1] was created by the artist Spiral Collection and can be found on several stock image websites and forums dating back to March 2013. The earliest meme featuring it, however, was posted on October 9th, 2016, on the Animo Apps^[2] website by user Perla Sarina, who added an overlay text in Spanish that translates to "If I don't come back I'm with Her [Death]." The post (shown below) amassed seven likes in seven years.

Spread

The image continued to be used in ironic posts on social media in the following years, especially by the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking communities. For instance, a popular iteration of the Grim Reaper praying meme is the "MDS" overlay in text in Portuguese, which is an acronym for oh my god (OMG), and is often used as a reaction image on X.

For example, on June 18th, 2023, X^[3] user @cohenxyx tweeted about a streamer controversy using the skeleton meme to express her reaction (shown below, left), which amassed roughly 6,500 likes and 638 retweets in six months. On September 4th, X^[4] user chapirousc used the image to show his reaction after finding out he commented something NSFW in an open Facebook group chat. The post (shown below, right), garnered roughly 21 likes and three retweets in two months.

On August 3rd, 2023, TikTok^[5] user @sanarvluv posted a lyric video of the K-pop music "CHEER UP" by TWICE, using several skeleton images and memes. The video (shown below) received over 400,000 plays and 115,000 likes in four months.

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References