About

Quit Having Fun refers to a series of memes in which a person criticizes a group of people for having fun while doing something he considers boring or undeserving of attention. Originating as from an xkcd webcomic about Rock Band, the format was popularized in memes starting in 2017, seeing an ironic resurgence in April 2020.

Origin

On December 17th, 2007, webcomic artist xkcd posted^[1] a webcomic "Rock Band" in which a person criticized a group of people for enjoying Rock Band, arguing that "it doesn't make you cool like a real rock band" (shown below).

On April 30th, 2012, Redditor^[2] gkx adopted the webcomic for the purpose of making fun of those criticizing Call of Duty fans. The edit received over 430 upvotes in /r/gaming in six months (shown below).

Between April 30th, 2012, and October 27th, 2012, an unknown user posted a three-panel webcomic inspired by the xkcd's comic (shown below). On October 27th, 2020, the comic was posted ot IGN Boards.^[3] A November 13th, 2012, repost of the comic by Redditor^[4] photo238 received over 1,400 upvotes in six years (shown below).

Spread

The comic did not see use in memes until on March 2nd, 2014, Redditor^[5] InGourdWeThrust posted the first known meme based on it to /r/twitchplayspokemon subreddit. The edit received over 1,700 upvotes in six months (shown below, left).

The format did not see significant spread prior to 2017, when it gained popularity on Reddit. For example, a March 19th, 2017, meme posted by Redditor^[6] Daggenhossin received over 160 upvotes in six months (shown below, left). A meme reposted by Redditor^[7] Vat1can on August 10th gained over 16,000 upvotes in /r/justneckbeardthings received over 16,000 upvotes in the same period (shown below, right).

In April 2020, the last panel of the comic saw a surge in ironic use following a viral tweet^[8] by Apandah.

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References