About

Sheltering Suburban Mom is an advice animal image macro series satirizing the stereotype of a suburban, overprotective mother who fails to practice what she preaches to her children. The series became widespread through advice animal hubsites like Quickmeme and Reddit's subreddit.

Origin

The original image used in the series comes from a portrait photograph of the best-selling romance novel writer Carly Phillips (shown far left), although it remains unclear why or how the author became associated with the joke.^[9] The earliest instance of the image macro (shown far right) can be traced back to May 5th, 2011, posted on Quickmeme and Reddit.^[1]

Spread

The Sheltering Suburban Mom series has spawned nearly 10,000 image macros on Quickmeme^[2] and more than 500 posts on r/adviceanimals subreddit^[3], as of May 2012. The popularity of the series on Reddit has also led to further iteration of the meme through other advice animal characters, including Reddit Alien^[5], Socially Awkward Penguin and Anti-Joke Chicken.

Similar posts can be found on numerous internet culture blogs including Smosh^[4], BuzzFeed^[10], as well as on the image-sharing community Tumblr^[8]. On June 6th, 2011, humor blog network Memestache^[11] launched the single-topic blog ShelteringSuburbanMom.com.

Notable Examples

Derivative: Sheltered Suburban Kid

Sheltering Suburban Mom's popularity has also caused an image macro derivative, the Sheltered Suburban Kid, who supposedly is the daughter of SSM. The image macro typically portrays a spoiled daughter of a suburban mother. Examples can be found on Quickmeme^[6] and r/adviceanimals^[7].

Search Interest

External References