About

Put It Back, Thief! is an exploitable meme template based on a drawing of an arm representing the United Kingdom reaching for Northern Ireland while another arm representing the people of Ireland grabs the United Kingdom arm by the wrist, captioned, "Put it back, thief!" The image was originally designed to protest the United Kingdom's ownership of Northern Ireland and spread throughout the 2010s and 2020s as a meme template, where the sleeves of each arm and the image of Ireland are photoshopped to represent new subjects. The template is sometimes used in Balkan memes.

Origin

On June 23rd, 2014, Deviant Art^[1] user EddardSands posted a piece of protest artwork depicting an arm representing the United Kingdom attempting to take Norther Ireland off of Ireland, with an arm representing Ireland grabbing the U.K. by the wrist, captioned, "Put it back, thief!" garnering over 2,700 views in nine years (shown below). The artwork appears to be inspired by an older piece of artwork depicting a similar scene with the same caption that was used as early as 2012.^[2]

EddardSands' art gained viral spread online over the years in articles by various political groups and activists about reclaiming Northern Ireland from the U.K.^[3][4] The earliest known edit of the image is a post by Facebook^[5] meme page Stu and Kevin's Meme Heaven, garnering around 15 interactions in four years.

Spread

The image became the further subject of memes throughout the late 2010s and 2020s. On May 13th, 2021, Instagram^[6] user the_chad_of_kvatch posted a version, writing, "I hereby declare that Albania is the rightful owner of Jerusalem," garnering over 4.300 likes in two years. On December 9th, 2022, two new photoshops of the meme were uploaded to /r/okbuddyretard^[7][8] by u/ThatOnePickleGuy and u/FransGoring, garnering over 6,900 and 1,100 upvotes respectively in a year (shown below, left and right).

On December 11th, Redditor u/Ema661 posted a photoshop of the meme featuring an image of a neckbeard over the Ireland arm to /r/okbuddyretard,^[9] garnering over 3,400 upvotes in a year (shown below).

On November 14th, 2023, X^[10] user @ShitpostGate posted a version of the meme originally by iFunny^[11] user MeanLesbianBeatingMachine captioned, "Ukraine rightfully belongs to Kansas," garnering over 4,900 likes in a day (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References