About

Spinofaarus and Spinosaurus Nerf refers to internet discourse about the large theropod dinosaur Spinosaurus aegyptiacus actually being a large aquatic predator lacking back legs and possessing a trunk, giving it a superficial resemblance to an elephant seal, rather than a land predator like Tyrannosaurus rex.

"Spinofaarus" was a name given to a joke reconstruction of the dinosaur on DeviantArt in 2013. However, later scientific papers from paleontologists in the 2010s and early 2020s somewhat confirmed the DeviantArt artist's depiction, countering previous models of Spinosaurus. Memes about Spinofaarus spread en masse across social media sites like Reddit and Twitter / X, often times using the caption Spinosaurus in 2030 to represent a full devolution of Spinosaurus' awesomeness by the future year. The phrase "Spinosaurus Nerf" surfaced on TikTok in the mid-2020s, joking about Spinosaurus getting "nerfed" —
a slang term about reducing a video game character's power via a patch or another update. The Spinosaurus was humorously compared to the T-rex in said memes, attesting that the T-rex was "buffed" rather than nerfed.

Origin

On January 26th, 2013, DeviantArt^[2] user Rodrigo-Vega shared a speculative evolution depiction of Spinosaurus aegyptiacus as a trunked semiaquatic quadruped. The drawing received over 81,800 views and 1,700 favorites in 12 years (shown below). The drawing was based on the speculative evolution book All Yesterdays.^[3][4][5]

On April 6th, DeviantArt^[1] user yoult shared a drawing titled, "Spinofaarus vegatiacus," which depicted Spinosaurus as an elephant seal-like animal. The drawing was a gaffe made in response to a comment left on the Primal Carnage forum in 2010. Artist yoult wrote in the description, "Spinofaarus shall just show how far we can get from Science if we let our minds float in totally evidenceless speculations and inadequate comparisons." Over 12 years, the post received over 41,000 views and 490 favorites (shown below).

Spread

Memes about the new Spinofaarus surfaced en masse in 2020. For instance, on April 29th, the Facebook^[10] page Spinofaarus shared a meme that read, "Science moves on, embrace it or vanish," gaining over 50 reactions in five years (shown below).

On April 30th, X^[9] user @TetZoo shared a photo of Spinofaarus on fish tank rocks, captioned, "I have constructed a throne for the new king." The tweet gained over 640 likes in five years (shown below).

On April 7th, 2023, YouTuber ^[11] RickRaptor105 shared a video about the history of the Spinofaarus meme, gaining over 222,700 views in two years (shown below).

On August 27th, YouTuber^[12] OhmSpino shared an original animation of the Spinofaarus, gaining over 655,600 views in two years (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References