About

Stand Back, I Am Beginning to Morb!, also Stand Back, I'm About to Morb and other similar variations, are a series of fan art in which various characters, primarily Jared Leto's Michael Morbius from the 2022 film Morbius, are warning others that they are about to morb, with "morb" being a nonsensical word spawned by the Morbius meme It's Morbin Time. The fan art trend gained virality in late May 2022 as a part of ironic Morbius memes.

Origin

On May 19th and May 20th, 2022, Twitter^[1][2] users @iinogang and @LydonCarlile posted four Chainsaw Man manga pages in which the characters Denji and Makima go to movies, three of which were edited so that Denji and Makima go to watch Morbius (original author unknown, shown below). On the first page, a panel was replaced with a stylized frame of Michael Morbius from the film, with a speech bubble reading, "Stand back! I am beginning to morb!" edited in. The posts gained over 3,500 retweets and 19,000 likes and 2,700 retweets and 10,400 likes in one week, respectively.

Spread

On May 21st, 2022, Tumblr^[3] user arcshikisaybah reposted the pages, with the post gaining over 20,000 likes and reblogs in five days. On May 22nd, Redditor^[4] plotarmor12 reposted the first edited page (with an additional panel taken from the third page) to the /r/ChainsawMan subreddit, where it gained over 2,500 upvotes prior to being removed.

On May 22nd, Twitter^[5][6] users @KAI_SHMUPER and @xyanaid posted the two earliest derivative fan labor memes in which Morbius warned others to stand back because he was "beginning to morb." The posts received over 4,100 retweets and 19,900 likes and 6,400 retweets and 41,700 likes in four days (shown below, left and right).

In late May 2022, more similar fan labor was submitted by users on Twitter, with @xyanaid's artwork gaining virality as a meme template.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References

^[1] Twitter – @iinogang

^[2] Twitter – @LydonCarlile

^[3] Tumblr – arcshikisaybah

^[4] Reddit – kino

^[5] Twitter – @KAI_SHMUPER

^[6] Twitter – @xyanaid