About

Shoot Them With the Dehydration Gun is a line about the character Megamind refusing to use his Dehydration Gun against villains that's screamed by YouTuber Schaffrillas in his video essay about the animated film Megamind vs. the Doom Syndicate. Following the premiere of the essay in late March 2024, the line went viral online as the dialogue was used as a caption and catchphrase in various memes.

Origin

On March 26th, 2024, YouTuber^[1] Schaffrillas Production posted a video essay about the animated film Megamind vs. the Doom Syndicate titled "Why Megamind 2 is a Cinematic Disaster," which garnered over 2.3 million views in nine days. Over the course of the video, the YouTuber grows increasingly frustrated with Megamind not using his Dehydration Gun in obvious situations, mainly refusing to use it against the villainous Doomsday Syndicate. At the 24:20 mark, Schaffrillas yells about Megamind using it against henchmen but not even attempting to use it against the main villains (shown below).

Hey wait, so he'll use it on these guys but not the Doom syndicates? "Oh, how do I stop four villains at once?" Shoot them with the Dehydration Gun!

Later on March 26th, X^[2] user @JoshuaTookers posted the clip from the video, which received over 5,100 reposts and 47,000 likes in nine days (shown below).

I'm cryin bruh pic.twitter.com/cQbqNHFKnJ

— #1 Space Jam 2 Lover (@JoshuaTookes) March 26, 2024

Spread

Starting on March 26th, 2024, users on X / Twitter posted caption memes based on the line. On that day, X^[3] user @Emmeraldss posted a Regular Show meme that received over 8,500 reposts and 76,000 likes in nine days (shown below, left). On March 29th, X^[4] user @Pamtree_Pigeon posted a My Brother in Christ meme that received over 1,600 reposts and 12,000 likes in six days (shown below, right).

On April 1st, 2024, X^[5] user @Bonniec07657922 posted an image of Megamind captioned with the setup for the line (shown below, left). The post then received an X / Twitter community note with the punchline (since removed), gaining over 4,700 reposts and 38,000 likes in three days. A screenshot of the post with the community note was shared in the /r/GetNoted^[6] subreddit on April 2nd, where it gained over 7,000 upvotes in two days (shown below, right).

The line saw more use in various memes in early April 2024, primarily on X / Twitter.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References