About

Real Nations vs. Delusional Cosplayers refers to a series of object-labeling memes that present former colonies of colonial empires (or countries within their geopolitical interests) as real representatives of these nations, and refer to former empires as "delusional cosplayers." Spawned by a viral Tumblr meme labeling Tunisians as real Italians and Italians as "delusional cosplayers" in 2023, the format achieved virality on Tumblr and Twitter / X in March 2024. The format is similar to Real X vs. Mental Disorders.

Origin

On September 7th, 2023, Tumblr^[1] user lgbtunis posted a map of the Mediterranean region, with Tunisia labeled "real Italians" and Italy labeled "delusional cosplayers." The post (shown below) received over 87,900 likes and reblogs in six months.

The thread was followed by humorous replies, with users captioning the image with numbered versions of Punic Wars as other users pointed out that the Second Punic War and Third Punic War did happen in real life (shown below).^[2]

Spread

On January 11th, 2024, Redditor IthadtobethisWAAGH posted a screenshot of the thread to the /r/CuratedTumblr^[3] subreddit, where it gained over 1,100 upvotes in two months.

On February 4th, Tumblr^[4] user soundgarden posted the earliest derivative version of the meme, labeling Canada and former French colonies in Africa as "real French" and France as "delusional cosplayers." The post (shown below, top) received over 30,600 upvotes in two months. Later that day, the user posted^[5] another version of the meme, marking all countries except for France as "real French" (shown below, bottom).

On March 17th, 2024, X^[6] meme account @ShitpostGate reposted the original version of the meme, with the post gaining over 1,600 reposts and 35,000 likes in two days. The post was followed by more versions of the meme being posted on X / Twitter. For example, on March 18th, X^[7] user @fitfuljest posted a meme about Spain and Latin America that received over 8,300 reposts and 84,000 likes in one day (shown below).

Related Memes

Real X vs. Mental Disorders

Real X vs. Mental Disorders (also worded as Actual X vs. Mental Illness and in similar ways) refers to a series of memes that parody tables of genders split into "actual genders" and "mental disorders" through similarly splitting other sets. The format achieved virality in December 2022 with a table that split types of screws into "actual screws" and "mental disorders."

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References