About

"Stahp", also known as “Becca Stahp”, is a four-pane comic series which typically consists of several illustrations or photographs depicting a disturbed-looking subject accompanied by captions based on the following snowclone template:

Panel 1: X
Panel 2: Wat R U Doin
Panel 3: X
Panel 4: Stahp!

Origin

The word “stahp” is an intentionally misspelled phonetic transcription of the word “stop,” which was introduced earlier in August 2011 through Stawp it, Rahn, another image macro series that pokes fun at the MTV's Jersey Shore cast member Sammi "Sweetheart" Giancola's accent (shown below, left). The earliest known captioned instance of the series based on a photograph of a scornful-looking dog (shown below, right) was uploaded by Tumblr^[1] user jmiliam on March 18th, 2012. Within six months, the post received over 124,300 notes.

Spread

On May 4th, 2012, jmiliam’s set of dog photos were highlighted on the Internet humor site 9gag.^[2] On August 11th, Yahoo Answers^[8] user anna posted a question titled "What does stahp mean?", to which user Fair responded that it was "an onomatopoeic way to say 'stop'." On August 18th, the Cheezburger site Memebase^[3] highlighted a comic with several panels featuring the mythical creature Slender Man (shown below, left). On August 23rd, FunnyJunk^[6] user destaice published a comic featuring screen captures of the characters Twilight Sparkle and Cadance from the animated television show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic with the caption "Cadance / Wat r u doin / Cadance / Stahp" (shown below, right).

On August 25th, Redditor Jakethedog8200 submitted a post titled "Steve Stahp" to the /r/Minecraft^[7] subreddit, which featured a comic showcasing several screen captures of a pig from the indie video game Minecraft with the captions "Waht r u doing / Steve stahp / STAHP." On August 28th, YouTuber OzzyIsSoRandom uploaded a video titled "Staph", featuring a comic with screen captures from the fantasy film franchise Harry Potter accompanied by a voice over narrating the captions (shown below). The meme has continued to spread on Tumblr^[5] under the tag "#stahp." As of September 5th, 2012, a Facebook^[4] page titled "Stahp" has accumulated over 5,700 likes.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References