About

Staring Avatar Guy refers to a screencap from the 2022 film Avatar: The Way of Water when the character Lyle Wainfleet wakes up the movie's villain Colonel Quaritch (played by Stephen Lang) in a hospital bed after his consciousness was transferred into a Na'vi. The image macro became a notable meme in early 2023 when top and bottom captions were added to it that relayed pun-related jokes with simple punchlines, such as "Road work ahead? I sure hope it does," among others.

Origin

On December 16th, 2022, the film Avatar: The Way of Water was released in American theaters.^[1] During one scene in the movie, the antagonist and villain Colonel Quaritch woke up in a hospital bed as a Na'vi (the blue aliens from Avatar). The camera angle was from his POV and showed the male Na'vi character Lyle Wainfleet^[2] looking down at him in the hospital bed with a medical light above and behind him (YouTube^[3] upload shown below).

On January 7th, 2023, TikToker^[4] @ienykid posted a photo slideshow in which the first image was a screencap of the aforementioned scene where Wainfleet's face is fully visible and staring directly into the camera (shown below). TikToker^[4] @ienykid's caption read, "next in line for ugliest character in the movie (spider being first in line) #musty #jakesully #neytiri," and over the course of two months, the photos received roughly 1.2 million plays and 226,800 likes.

Spread

After TikToker^[4] @ienykid's slideshow, TikToker^[5] @quaritchsboxersmeller posted their own slideshow on January 8th, 2023, using the Avatar Guy Staring screencap and writing in text overlay on the primary image, "I CANT STOP LOOKING AT THIS IMAGE" (shown below, left). The slideshow received roughly 91,100 plays and 14,300 likes in two months. On February 6th, Twitter^[6] user @yallletmedownv4 tweeted the screencap, captioning it, "I’m making a run for more Za bro you good? If I leave you here you good?" in reference to the slang term for weed "zaza." Over the course of one month, the tweet received roughly 3,600 likes (shown below, right).

Screenshots of Twitter^[6] user @yallletmedownv4's tweet then surfaced on other platforms, such as Tumblr ^[7] on February 14th, 2023, where it earned over 9,600 notes in one month. Days prior, on February 6th, iFunnyer^[8] @AbrahamLinkin42 posted a message screenshot in which they used the Staring Avatar Guy image and the zaza-related caption, earning roughly 13,400 smiles in one month (shown below).

Going into March 2023, usage of the image continued to surface on iFunny and became associated with jokes that had simple punchlines. This trend predominantly started with a meme uploaded by iFunnyer^[9] @TheLordKingSim on February 27th, 2023, that had top and bottom captions reading, "Bird Flu ? Yeah They Do That." Over the course of 15 days, the meme received roughly 3,100 smiles (shown below).

Related Memes

Avatar Chud

Avatar Chud refers to a minor soldier character in Avatar: The Way of Water. The character is a "recombinant," a Na'vi avatar implanted with a mind and memories of a dead human soldier, sporting a buzz cut and Oakley-type sunglasses. Due to the character's design matching a stereotypical appearance of a supporter of right-wing politics in the U.S., he became the subject of memes as an exploitable in which he was imagined as being a conservative following the movie's release in December 2022.

Various Examples

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External References