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About

Subway Customer With Bazooka refers to a viral photograph of a man in a sleeveless American flag t-shirt and carrying a rocket launcher labeled "INERT," meaning the weapon is unloaded, decommissioned or a replica, at a Subway fast-food restaurant. The photo comes from a May 2020 tweet of photographs of activists protesting the stay at home orders in Raleigh, North Carolina put in place to stop the spread of the coronavirus. Some refer to the group of protesters as "Meal Team Six."

Origin

On May 9th, 2020, photojournalist Travis Long tweeted,^[1] "A group of about 11 mostly-armed demonstrators protesting the stay at home order marched around downtown Raleigh and ordered sandwiches at a Subway. #Covid_19 #ncpol #MealTeamSix." The post received more than 20,000 likes and 7,100 retweets in less than two days (shown below, left). Among the photographs of men armed with assault weapons, one of the men photographed at a Subway fast-food restaurant can be seen carrying a rocket launcher (shown below, right).

Spread

People began posting jokes and comments about the photographs using the hashtag. Twitter^[2] user @somebadideas tweeted, "Please I’m begging I need more photos of the guy with an anti tank bazooka in line at a subway trying to choose between cold cut combo and roast beef the funniest stupidest American thing ever." The tweet received more than 7,800 likes and 1,000 retweets in less than 24 hours (shown below, left). Twitter user @AlisonStinely tweeted,^[3] "The one dude has an inert/decommissioned rocket launcher and another had a big machine gun thingy MADE OF WOOD. Were they planning on bonking someone over the head? The cosplay is out of control. #mealteamsix" (shown below, right).

Twitter^[4] user @denisequ edited the images of the gun and replaced them with sex toys.

Some began referring to the man with the bazooka as "Eagle Scout Dad," based on the tattoo on his right arm. Twitter^[5] user @SantaInc tweeted, "Subway is the only place the Eagle Scout Dad can achieve 6 inches." The tweet received more than 1,000 likes and 155 retweets in less than two days (shown below).

On May 10th, Redditor ^[6] NoShoulderSurfing posted the photo in the /r/WTF subreddit. The post received more than 6,300 points (94% upvoted) and 1,000 comments in less than 24 hours.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Not available.

External References