About

Silence X, a Y Is Talking refers an exploitable meme template showing the King Baldwin IV Hand Raise image paired with a top and bottom caption reading the aforementioned phrasal template in which meme creators recaption the X and Y spot to read two opposing archetypes. For instance, one of the most notable examples read, "Silence Pothead, an Alcoholic Is Talking." The meme trended en masse in mid-2024 predominantly on Twitter / X.

Origin

On June 5th, 2024, Statue Profile Pic X^[1] user @consciousphilos quoted a post with a meme that captioned the King Baldwin IV Hand Raise with, "SILENCE, JEW / A Christian is talking," receiving over 9,600 likes in a week (shown below).

Spread

Going into June 2024, meme creators recaptioned the meme. The first known recaption was shared by Tumblr^[2] user kaijuno.blog on June 8th, 2024, who made the meme read, "SILENCE, Pothead / An alcoholic is talking," gaining over 8,300 notes in fours days (shown below, left).

On June 9th, X^[3] user @nonstopbrocock reposted the aforementioned meme, receiving over 171,000 likes in three days. Thereafter, many on X recaptioned the meme, like X^[4] user @Marcus_cel on June 10th, 2024, who made it read, "SILENCE, Heartless Bitch / A sensitive young man is talking," earning over 55,000 likes in two days (shown below, right).

The template spread elsewhere in June 2024, evident in a post shared by the Facebook^[5] page Etymology Memes for Reconstructed Phonemes on June 11th, that read, "SILENCE, linguist / A Youtuber is talking," earning over 1,200 reactions in a day (shown below, left).

Also on June 11th, Instagram^[6] user @avocado_ibuprofen posted an iteration reading, "SILENCE, artist. / A curator is talking," gaining over 4,400 likes in a day (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References