About

Sasa Lele is an intentional misreading of two adjoining signs advertising a sale where the letters S, A, L and E are arranged in a square, such that if one reads them left-to-right, it appears to say "SASA LELE." The design has appeared in several ads and became one of the more well-known memes in the 2019 surge of Don't Dead Open Inside memes. In June 2021, the meme regained popularity in a format in which characters from various franchises attempt to read the sign.

Origin

On July 10th, 2014, Reddit user SchumannWeb posted an image of two square signs reading "SALE" next to each other, with the caption, "The person who shared this said, 'What the heck is SASA LELE,'" gaining 12 points in the /r/CrappyDesign^[4] subreddit (shown below). This is the earliest found post about a Sasa Lele arrangement.

Spread

On August 4th, 2016, Imgur^[1] user diamanthunden posted an image of two signs advertising a sale on Levi's jeans that when read left-to-right appears to read "SASA LELE" (shown below, left).

The image appeared in several other threads over the following years, including a May 22nd, 2017, post in /r/crappydesign^[2] that gained over 25,000 points and a post in /r/malaysia^[3] that gained over 700 points. It was also not the only instance where a brand inadvertently created "Sasa Lele." On May 27th, 2016, Redditor Zmini12 posted two Kia signs that made "Sasa Lele," gaining over 90 points (shown below, left). On November 8th, 2016, another example from a pharmacy appeared on /r/Crappydesign, gaining over 180 points (shown below, right).

On January 20th, 2017, Imgur^[17] user NeverShouldveComeHere posted the earliest found meme based on another version, with the post gaining over 67,700 views and 1,300 upvotes in four years (shown below, right). On May 22nd, Redditor^[18] lovecrush posted the photograph to the /r/CrappyDesign subreddit, where it received over 25,500 upvotes. The photograph, in which a Levi's store displays the promotion, (shown below, left) would later become source material for memes in 2019 and then again in 2021.

The misreading began trending in 2019 alongside various Don't Dead Open Inside memes. For example, on September 4th, 2019, Redditor xd_cheesyboi posted an example featuring YouTuber PewDiePie that received over 46,400 upvotes in the /r/memes^[5] subreddit in six months (shown below, left). An expanding brain parody appeared on /r/memes on September 6th, 2019 (shown below, right).

June 2021 Resurgence

In June 2020, an unknown user posted a Sasa Lele meme in which Demon Slayer characters Inosuke Hashibira and Tanjiro Kamado attempt to read the sign, with the post widely circulated^[6][7] online in the following months (shown below). In August 2020, Instagram^[8][9] pages daily_konosuba and 002_.zerotwo posted versions of the meme featuring KonoSuba and Darling in the Franxx (shown below, center and right).

On June 10th, 2021, Redditor MissfortuneAle reposted the Demon Slayer version of the meme to the /r/animemes^[10] subreddit, where it gained over 4,800 upvotes in three weeks. On June 16th, the Facebook^[11] page Anime Voice reposted the meme, with the post gaining over 19,000 reactions and 21,000 shares in two weeks.

On June 19th, Twitter^[12] user @dcnnanoble posted The Conjuring version of the meme that received 69 retweets and 430 likes in two weeks (shown below, left), introducing the format to the platform. Starting that day, more versions of the format were posted on Twitter. For example, a June 19th tweet^[13] by @oceansmilfs gained over 300 retweets and 1,400 likes. A Killing Eve meme posted by Twitter^[14] user @killinglena on June 21st received over 430 retweets and 3,000 likes.

On June 23rd, Redditor^[15] vini2064 posted a Genshin Impact version of the meme that gained over 7,300 upvotes and received viral spread online (shown below, center). On June 24th, Twitter^[16] user @satourgojo posted a version of the meme that introduced an additional reply variation. The tweet gained over 2,800 retweets and 13,500 likes (shown below, right).

The dynamic introduced in @satourgojo's tweet gained viral spread, with users on Twitter, Facebook and Reddit creating similar memes featuring characters from various franchises and further expanding on the format.

Various Examples

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Search Interest

External References