About

The Prometheus School Of Running Away From Things is a catchphrase commonly used in memes referring to a trope in which people, animals or fictional characters are mocked for their perceived inability to run away from a threat, instead putting themselves in great danger by running in a straight line rather than turning to avoid it or rolling out of the way. The phrase is a reference to a scene from the 2012 Alien prequel movie Prometheus in which two characters run in a straight line as a ship crashes toward them, which garnered popularity within the Cinema Sins fandom before spreading to mainstream use over the following years.

Origin

On June 8th, 2012, Alien franchise prequel Prometheus was released. One common criticism of the film is that the characters do not tend to properly avoid danger or rationally escape dangerous situations, appearing to deliberately put themselves in stupid situations unfitting with their scientific backgrounds. In particular, the scene in which Elizabeth Shaw (played by actress Noomi Rapace) and Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron) are running from a falling spaceship in a straight line rather than dodging to the side became a prominent moment of criticism online (scene shown below).

This observation gained traction in a January 2nd, 2013, Cinema Sins YouTube video entitled “Everything Wrong With Prometheus In 4 Minutes Or Less.” The video, seen below, earned over 8.7 million views in 11 years on YouTube.^[1]

As the video gained interest, a recurring joke about movie characters using one-dimensional thinking resurfaced within the Cinema Sins fandom. This, combined with the video’s jokes about characters running away, resulted in a spam comment reading “The Prometheus School Of Running Away From Things” appearing in different variations throughout hundreds of the YouTube video’s roughly 11,250 comments. Cinema Sins notably used the catchphrase as a recurring reference throughout the rest of the YouTube series.

Spread

The phrase trended as a quote outside of the Cinema Sins community over the following years, gaining widespread attention as a caption for videos of characters running away from things very poorly. In most cases, the characters can be seen running in a straight line instead of dodging to avoid danger.

YouTube’s earliest example of the catchphrase being used in a video was an upload by YouTube^[2] user Shawn, showing a video game player refusing to move as a helicopter crashes on his character. The video, posted on September 13th, 2014, gained over 4,200 views in nine years (seen below).

On YouTube, the phrase continued to gain traction in video titles going into the late 2010s. For instance, on January 29th, 2018, YouTube^[3] user Yee Macghyee posted a video showing a character in Grand Theft Auto V getting killed by a tank after running in a straight line. The video (seen below, left) gained over 2,400 views in six years.

On May 23rd, 2017, YouTube^[4] user Petting Everything posted an extended clip of a rabbit running from a car, but refusing to deviate from the road in order to escape. The video (seen below, right) gained over 9,200 views in six years.

On December 17th, 2015, the definition of “Prometheus School Of Running Away From Things” was added to Urban Dictionary^[5] by user JokinWaffle, reading:

A saying that is applied when something is falling on or chasing someone, and instead of turning and running to get out of the path of the object, this person runs straight instead.

The man was about to be crushed by the falling building because he obviously went to the prometheus school of running away from things.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References