About

Skeleton Pointing Gun, also known as Skeleton Pointing Pistol, is an image macro meme of a cloaked skeleton figure (resembling Death or the Grim Reaper) pointing a handgun at the viewer with smoke surrounding him, often with accompanying top and bottom text to give the impression of being a badass. Since its initial unironic posting in 2015, the meme has had several different variations and spin-offs with varying degrees of irony attached to them. The ironic meme is also part of the macro trend of edgy skeletons.

Origin

Though the image of the cloaked skeleton holding a gun can be found on different tattoo websites and forums dating back to 2013, the first meme image featuring it was posted by the Facebook page Not Only Do We^[1] on August 5th, 2015. In the post, which is captioned "Hell ya!!" in a show of support, the gun-brandishing skeleton declares that if you betray his trust, he'll be your reaper, which gained over 470 likes in eight years (shown below).

Spread

The meme continued to be used unironically in the following years, with Facebook user NZ Gangster Quotes 2018^[2] posting a version of the meme on June 25th, 2018, in which the background is painted onto a building. In the image, the skeleton says to always be one step ahead, even ahead of those in first place (shown below).

In early 2019, the meme had a drastic shift in tone after a variation was made using the Born to X, Forced to Y format that featured the skeleton saying he was "born to shit, forced to wipe." A reupload of the meme, posted to Facebook by the page Yeah nah mate^[3] on February 21st, 2019, showcased how the meme quickly went from unironically being about toughness to being ironically faux tough (shown below).

Various Examples

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Search Interest

External References