About

The Pear Wiggler refers to a viral Tumblr post from 2014 on a computer-generated simulation of pears being damaged during transport. After it was dubbed "The Pear Wiggler" by another user, it went on to become an image and GIF-based meme depicting characters in the Pear Wiggler, and the post was popularly dubbed by Gianni Matragrano.

Origin

On December 10th, 2023, YouTube user DEM Research Group^[1] posted a computer-generated prediction of pears being damaged during transport (shown below). The video received over 92,000 views in over ten years.

A GIF of the video was reposted to Tumblr by fruitsoftheweb^[2] on September 16h, 2014. Later on the same day, Tumblr user slumbermancer, currently known as hollowtones,^[3] reblogged the post with the comment "bad and naughty children get put in The Pear Wiggler to atone for their crimes". On October 20th, 2014, Tumblr user dialupmodem^[4] reblogged slumbermancer's post with the comment "what the fuck is that comment". The posts (shown below) received over 235,000 likes and over 304,000 reblogs in over nine years.

Spread

The Tumblr post with the comment helped the GIF become a meme on the platform. On December 14th, 2014, Tumblr user whethervane^[6] posted an edit of the GIF featuring Over the Garden Wall characters in a post that gained over 6,000 notes in ten years (shown below).

On November 16th, 2020, YouTube user Gianni Matragrano^[5] posted a video reading of hollowtones' text and added his voice to it with a wobbly distortion (shown below). The video received over 1 million views in over three years.

The post continued seeing use in memes into the 2020s. For example, on March 25th, 2021, Tumblr user neuxue^[7] posted an edit of the GIF referencing the Suez Canal Jam, gaining over 2,800 notes in three years (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable

External References