About

The Lion Rapes the Small Dog When It Barks, also known as The Lion Rapes Anything That Speaks or The Lion Does Not Concern Himself With X, refers to a shitpost black-and-white image macro meme of a lion based on a preceding sigma grindset quote that reads, "The lion does not turn around when the small dog barks." First shared in late 2024 and gaining viral spread in February 2025, the macro inspired various memes that referenced it. In April 2025, several of the memes went viral on TikTok via photo slideshows.

Origin

The Lion Rapes the Small Dog macro is based on "The Lion Does Not Turn Around When the Small Dog Barks," a popular sigma grindset quote or idiom that inspired various image macros throughout the 2010s and 2020s.^[1][2] The meme is a black-and-white motivational image and depicts a lion's side profile next to the quote (shown below).

The exact origin of the edit from the original quote to "The Lion Rapes the Small Dog When It Barks" is currently unknown. On November 5th, 2024, Redditor Material_Weight9086 made the earliest found repost of the edit to the /r/SLGreddit^[3] subreddit (shown below).

On November 17th, an anonymous user then posted the image to FunnyJunk.^[4] On December 12th, 2024, Instagram user lettuce.exe made a repost that received over 44,000 likes in four months.

Spread

More reposts of the image on Reddit, Instagram and other platforms followed in December 2024 and January 2025.

For instance, on February 8th, 2025, X^[5] user @gunk4188 made one of the earliest posts that referenced the meme, writing, "the Lion rapes the world." The post received over 140 reposts and 2,000 likes in one month. On February 9th, X^[6] user @Myrlynth replied with an image macro based on the meme that received over 200 reposts and 1,800 likes in one month (shown below).

In late February and early March 2025, X^[7] user @realKalos posted several notable memes and jokes referencing the macro. For example, on March 1st, 2025, @realKalos posted a joke that gained over 230 reposts and 3,800 likes in six days (shown below).

On March 5th, 2025, X^[8] user @Marcus_cel posted a meme that received over 1,600 reposts and 20,000 likes (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References