About

Pressing a Boot On Your Own Head is a series of image macros featuring two photographs, one of a child having a boot pressed onto their head, the other of a photograph of the child holding the boot to their head. The photographs are frequently labeled and captioned with jokes about self sabotage.

Origin

The earliest known usage of the photographs was posted on November 1st, 2018 by Twitter ^[1] user @alonsoc_oficial. They captioned the photograph "Cuando alguien está destruyendo tu vida…Pero eres tú mismo" (translation: "When someone is destroying your life…But you're yourself"). The post received more than 4,300 retweets and 8,000 likes in one month (shown below).

Spread

Days later, the image and caption was shared by the Facebook ^[2] page bettanzoss, receiving more than 50 reactions and 45 shares.

On November 10th, an anonymous 9GAG ^[3] user posted the image, captioning each respective half "Published" and "Reality" in a post about the news media. The post received more than 682 points in less than one month (shown below, left).

Later that month, on November 30th, Redditor ^[6] saltysnatch posted the image in the /r/FunnyandSad subreddit. They captioned the post, "When you finally catch that muther fuker that's been holdin' you down." The post (shown below, center) received more than 14,000 points (96% upvoted) and 50 comments. That day, ^[4] rumphy posted the image in the /r/MemeEconomy/ subreddit. The post received more than 21,000 points (91% upvoted) and 845 comments in less than one week (shown below, center).

Over the next week, the image received more attention from various subreddits. For example, Redditor^[5] djardastar posted an object-labeled version of the image in the /r/memes subreddit. The post received more than 8,600 points (95% upvoted) and 55 comments in three days (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References