About

Schoolgirl Spilling Her Lunch, also known as Arigatou Obama-san, is a meme series based on two photos of a fallen-over Japanese schoolgirl staring sadly at her spilled bento lunch. It has been used in a variety of image macros and remixes throughout the years.

Origin

The photos are originally from the 2008 Japanese TV series ラブレター (Love Letter), and the depicted person is character Minami Tadokoro (portrayed by actress Rio Yamashita).^[1][2][3] The first known occurrence of the image online was on January 31st, 2010, when it appeared on a Japanese forum.^[4] It saw its first known use in Reddit on July 9th, 2012.^[5] The earliest known meme instance of the image dates back to at least March 20th, 2013, referencing Instagram food photography (shown below).^[6]

Spread

On July 27th, 2015, Imgur^[7] user koektrommel posted a Thanks, Obama variation with the meme. The template saw wide use online throughout the following years.^[8][9]

Over the following years, the meme developed in a similar vein to Am I Out Of Touch?, seeing examples that used punchlines like I Bet the Jews Did This" and "Capitalism is to Blame" (examples shown below"

Various Examples

Search interest

External References