prevalent

Origin

On August 20th 2017, in the closed Facebook group Shitposting about /co/mics, member Jonathan Carter (hereafter referred to as JC) asked the following inadvertently homophobic question in a thread about the comic book superhero and out-of-the-closet homosexual Midnighter :

How prevalent is the gay stuff in the Midnighter book?
I'm really interested in reading about the character and everyone says that it's great, but I honestly don't wanna read about a gay romance so I'm wondering if it's a huge part of the books or shoved in our faces at all

The question garners much confusion in the thread as members query why it even matters, eventually devolving into rants about homophobia and politics so much so that the original thread was deleted.

However, a moderator did post the quote in a separate thread which, through a lot of shitposting about homophobia and stupid questions, transmuted the entire affair into the 'prevalent' or 'prevalence' meme within the group. Since then, when the topic of homosexuality came up or there was insinuation of homosexuality members would paraphrase the question, ask how prevalent (read: gay) something or someone is, or simply say 'prevalent'. The word became a non-homophobic synonym for gay, but also carried to other uses where an issue is obvious but not relevant (i.e. Midnighter's sexuality) to a discussion.

Escape from group

On April 29th 2018 admin3 of the Facebook page Comic book pages without context, page run by the same admins as Shitposting about /co/mics, had the author of the Midnighter Volume 1: OUT Steve Orlando sign a a copy of said graphic novel with the text "It's Prevalent!".

The picture was shared on the page as one of the first known instances of the meme escaping the closed group and entering Facebook regular. The meme entered the Twitterverse shortly thereafter when Adam from 2005 took the picture from Facebook and posted it on his feed. This was liked and re-tweeted by Steve Orlando, giving the meme official historicity.

The meme was officially endorsed by DC comics editor Chris Conroy when he retweeted it with an added message "AMAZIN MIDNIGHTER THREAD. Adding "prevalent" to my business cards, thanks"

Chris Conroy also used the meme in action while retweeting the above with "Shazam! Here Comes Captain Relevent. Senior Editor at @dccomics. Opinions my own. [pride flag emoji]". It is unknown whether the replacement of Prevalent with Relevant was a typo or on purpose.

Trivia

JC acknowledged in the mod repost thread that only real answer to "How prevalent is the gay stuff in the Midnighter book?" was given by a now banned but beloved member: "Unless you hate two men talking to each other about their relationship sometimes, I don't think it'll be too much of a turn-off."

JC also stressed in the same thread that the question was not meant to come off as homophobic, but came out of ignorance on how to frame the topic:

JC: Yea the wording was pretty awful that's my bad, I'm genuinely finding it hard to find the correct words
Anon1: Damn okay jeez that's hilarious in a sad kind of way
Anon2: I get where you're coming from though. People acted like you came in here saying a bunch of hateful shit when really
JC: Yea I genuinely don't hate gay people or anything lol