Ryan Gosling as Black Panther

About

Ryan Gosling as Black Panther refers to a viral edit of an image of the Black Marvel superhero Black Panther in which Literally Me actor Ryan Gosling's head is photoshopped onto the character's body. First posted in early 2018, the image achieved meme status in the following years, being used for shitposting, particularly in the context of race swapping in media.

Origin

On February 9th, 2018, an anonymous Imgur^[1] user uploaded an edited image of T'Challa / Black Panther in the Marvel 2018 film Black Panther, editing the head of actor Ryan Gosling onto the superhero's body (shown below). The post, titled "Black Panther Asia release (2018), garnered over 9,700 views in six years. The authorship of the edit is unconfirmed.

Spread

On February 10th, 2018, an anonymous 4chan^[2] user posted the image on the /tv/ board of the site, writing, "How can China get away with this?" The thread (shown below) received 8 replies.

On February 18th, 2018, Tumblr^[3] user evulchibi posted a fan art that depicted Black Panther as a white man. The artwork received over 14,800 likes and reblogs and was widely circulated and criticized over whitewashing, with the author proceeding to troll the critics. On February 20th, both this image and the Ryan Gosling image were shared in a popular /tv/ 4chan^[4] thread.

On July 7th, 2019 or prior, an unknown X / Twitter user posted the image, commenting, "can't wait for back panther 2" (shown below, left). The post, which has since been deleted, saw viral spread through reposts: for example, on July 7th, Redditor kane3232 posted a screenshot of the post to the /r/memes^[5] subreddit, where it received over 100 upvotes in four years.

Also on July 7th, 2019, 9GAG^[6] user cantunseethis posted the image, captioning it, "Everybody's talking about the little mermaid. I'm just waiting for black panther two to come out." The post (shown below, right) received over 1,300 upvotes on the site in four years.

In the early 2020s, the image achieved major recognition on social media, often being posted in threads discussing race swapping in media, as well as being used for general shitposting.

On July 2022, X^[7] user @brndxix reacted to a trailer for the 2022 film Black Panther: Wakanda Forever with the image, replying, "i know who it is in the suit." The post (shown below, left) gained over 2,600 reposts and 37,000 likes in two years.

On December 19th, film news account @screentime reported that Ryan Gosling was in talks to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe. On the same day, X^[8] user @RaulOnDaRun quoted the post with the image, commenting, "ITS HAPPENING." The post (shown below, right) garnered over 12,000 reposts and 129,000 likes in one day.

Related Memes

Evulchibi's White Panther

Evulchibi's White Panther refers to a race-swapped fan art of Black Panther posted by Tumblr artist Evulchibi on February 18th, 2018 (shown below). The fan art drew online criticism over whitewashing and has since seen spread as a meme.

Various Examples

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Search Interest

External References