Sad Linus

About

Sad Linus is a still image of tech YouTuber Linus Sebastian taken from his January 2020 video "I've been thinking of retiring." The image, which features Linus staring solemnly at the camera with his headset on, has been used as a reaction image and in ironic memes on Reddit and iFunny.

Origin

On January 22nd, 2020, LinusTechTips streamed live on YouTube in a stream titled "I've been thinking of retiring." (shown below). The video, which announced that he had reached 10 million subscribers and then discussed his thoughts about retiring from YouTube, gained over 2.3 million views and 234,000 likes in two days.

On January 23rd, 2020, Redditor chickenfart29 posted the still image to r/memes with a caption insinuating that this video was true sadness (shown below). The post accumulated over 1,900 points (98% upvoted) in a day.

Precursor

Linus Selfie refers to a close-up selfie photograph uploaded by tech blogger Linus Sebastian on May 23rd, 2019. After gaining initial popularity as an exploitable on Twitter, the image later spread to ironic communities on iFunny, Reddit and Instagram. On May 23rd, 2019, tech blogger Linus Sebastian uploaded a front camera selfie to Twitter,^[1] writing "how much does YOUR selfie cam distort near the edge of the frame."^[5] The tweet received over 150 retweets and 1,700 likes in two months.

Spread

On January 23, 2020, Redditors continued to use the still as a reaction image and iFunny^[6][7][8] began reacting to the footage with video edits. That day, Redditor PowerPond uploaded the image to r/dankmemes^[2] with the caption "when you're browsing new and see the same shit 20 times in a row" (shown below, left). The post gained over 85,500 points (90% upvoted) in a day. Redditor SpanishGarbo used the still in a four-paneled image posted to r/linuslore^[3] and received over 1,400 points (98% upvoted) in a day. StayHipp^[4] published an article listing many of the initial memes and reactions.

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References