About

"That's a Penis" is a memorable quote from an episode of the comedy television show How I Met Your Mother, which is commonly associated online with a reaction GIF of the scene.

Origin

In Season 2 Episode 6 of How I Met Your Mother, the architecture firm owned by the protagonist Ted presents a design to which the client responds by saying "that's a penis" (shown below).

On January 30th, 2011, Tumblr user brokentripod reportedly created the GIF. However, they posted the earliest available usage of the meme on February 3rd. The post received more than 154,000 notes in less than 10 years (shown below).

Spread

On June 8th, 2011, user Sticky on the microblogging site Soup^[5] posted an animated GIF of the scene with the caption "that's a penis" (shown below).

On June 22nd, 2011, a Facebook^[1] page titled "That's a penis" was launched. On July 16th, Redditor Mexican_Beluga posted the animated GIF to the /r/funny^[3] subreddit to mock his friend's first sexual experience, receiving more than 6,000 up votes and 530 comments before it was archived. On August 28th, Redditor monochrome_sketch linked to the GIF on the /r/funny^[2] subreddit, joking about his first time browsing the amateur nude pictures subreddit /r/gonewild. In the comments section of the post, Redditor Tyba11s posted a reversed version of the GIF (shown below). Prior to being archived, the post gathered over 6,100 up votes and 190 comments.

On the same day, Tumblr user brokentripod^[4] reposted the reversed GIF. On August 9th, 2012, Redditor Khromasoul posted the original "that's a penis" GIF to the /r/reactiongifs^[7] subreddit, expressing his reaction to seeing his wife's ultrasound. Prior to being archived, the post gathered more than 1,900 up votes and 50 comments. On October 21st, IGN Forums^[6] member sumidiotdude posted the reversed GIF in "The Vestibule" community board.

Search Interest

External References