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/r/BatmanArkham
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About
/r/BatmanArkham is a subreddit nominally devoted to the Batman Arkham series of video games but grew notorious for a series of popular memes that have spread outside of the subreddit and into the broader internet. These include Is He Stupid?, Is There A Lore Reason?, Jonkler and others.
History
/r/BatmanArkham was created on August 21st, 2013[1] and has over 383,000 subscribers as of January 18th, 2024. For much of its history, members of the subreddit posted various memes and comments related to the games, typical of most subculture subreddits. For example, on October 17th, 2019, Redditor orangeorangutan1919 posted a game-related meme to the subreddit[2] that gained over 24,000 points in four years (shown below, left). On August 25th, 2020, Redditor jasonthewaffle2003 posted a game-related joke[3] that gained over 19,000 points in three and a half years (shown below, right).
Related Memes
Starting in late 2022 and early 2023, the /r/BatmanArkham subreddit began latching onto various in-jokes in the subreddit, often stemming from typos or post titles, and spamming the quotes, leading to them becoming a meme outside of the subreddit. On October 15th, 2022, /r/BatmanArkham moderator IncompleteQuality pinned a statement about a consistent increase in "shitpost" memes on the subreddit. In the post, the mod says that such posts are welcome, writing:
We have been getting a lot of flack lately for allowing so many shitposts on the sub and I’d like to elaborate on my thoughts regarding it, at the end of the day most of these shitposts are literally just shitposts, completely harmless and if you have a problem with them, I’m sorry but feel free to go to another subreddit. At the end of the day, this sub hasn’t had a game in 7 fucking years, what do you want it to do? Recycle the same content over and over again or the community to make in sub jokes and overall have a laugh with each other.
Is There A Lore Reason?
On October 22nd, Redditor ricioly posted an image of the Arkham Knight to /r/BatmanArkham, titled, "Is there a lore reason why he’s called the Arkham Knight?" adding the description, "Because as far as I know, he has no relation to anything Arkham, besides the game franchise he’s in 🤷♂️," seemingly a dig at barring discussions about Gotham Knights, garnering over 1,100 upvotes in four days (shown below). That same day, Redditor Remyrubbish posted an image of Killer Croc to /r/BatmanArkham, writing, "Is there a lore reason why he’s called killer croc?" garnering over 400 upvotes in the same span of time, starting the trend.
The trend spread not only on the /r/BatmanArkham subreddit, but other subreddits and Twitter as well in the following days. On October 23rd, Redditor ZrO2548 posted a meme to /r/yakuzagames titled, "Is there a lore reason why these two have never fucked?" over an image of two characters from Yakuza, garnering over 2,400 upvotes in three days (shown below).
Is He Stupid?
On February 5th, 2023, Redditor u/Encajado shared a picture of a Batman: Arkham Knight scene in which Batman is looking over the city after the villain Scarecrow activated a device that shrouded the entire city in a deadly fear gas. User u/Encajado added the image in the lore recap section of the /r/BatmanArkham subreddit with the caption "Why doesn't Batman just call the Justice League for help? Is he stupid?" The post received over 5,500 upvotes and 550 comments in one month (seen below) and is attributed to popularizing the format among many online.
The trend was initially kept on the /r/BatmanArkham subreddit but spread to other subreddits and fandoms in early March 2023. For instance, Reddit user /u/POKing99 uploaded an image to the /r/lotrmemes subreddit on March 11th, depicting Frodo from The Lord of The Rings with the caption "Why does he keep getting stabbed? Is he stupid?" The post (seen below) received 5,400 upvotes and 304 comments in five days.
Jonkler
The Jonkler is an intentional misspelling of The Joker, usually referring to him as he appears in the Batman: Arkham series of video games, in the /r/BatmanArkham subreddit. Posts about the "Jonkler" will usually be written in broken or grammatically incorrect English, picking up from the Is He Stupid? meme that grew popular in the sub. On April 21st, 2023, Redditor horny_cabbage69 posted a screenshot of The Joker from the Batman: Arkham games in /r/BatmanArkham, writing, "Why does the jonkler? is he stupid?" The post gained over 430 points in five months (shown below).
On July 22nd, 2023, YouTuber Big A-Ron posted a humorous compilation of Jonkler posts from /r/BatmanArkham, gaining over 356,000 views in two months (shown below, left). On May 26th, YouTuber Christendo64 did the same, gaining over 388,000 views in four months (shown below, right).
Aslume
Aslume, sometimes spelled Alsume, is a misspelling of "Asylum" celebrated by the /r/BatmanArkham subreddit. After a user in the subreddit asked if "Alsume" was the worst Arkham game, the community began jokingly referring to Batman: Arkham Asylum as "Aslume" for years and mixed it with the numerous memes popularized by the sub.
Ham / Man
Another popular meme on the subreddit is the shortening "Arkham" to "Ham" and "Batman" to "Man." "Ham" will often appear in photoshopped covers for the series, while "Man" is generally stylized as Batman without the iconic points on his helmet.
