About

The Red refers to jokes in the /r/surrealmemes subreddit regarding the color red as though it were a character. Jokes began in early February of 2018 when a popular post in the subreddit claimed to have used all the red pixels in the world, leading to a series of jokes based on the idea that there was a shortage in red.

Origin

On February 6th, 2018, Redditor hanuke^[1] posted an image with a long strip of red, saying "There is only a limited number of red pixels in the world. Today, all of those pixels are here. There will be no more red today." The post gained over 6,300 upvotes (shown below).

Spread

As the post grew popular, other users in the subreddit began creating jokes based off the color red. The following day, a post by TheOneThatSaysNo^[2] called a car "the red one" gaining over 2,000 upvotes (shown below, left). The same day, Redditor potato_rotato^[3] uploaded an image of a blue apple, saying it appeared blue because all the red in the world had been stolen, gaining over 26,000 upvotes (shown below, right).

Another picture using an apple was posted on the 9th by Redditor RedHood000, gaining over 11,000 upvotes (shown below, left). The same day, user muffinchicken posted an image that gained over 22,000 notes (shown below, right). The influx of memes about The Red was inquired upon on /r/OutOfTheLoop^[4] on February 10th. As of February 12th, the subreddit design is Red-themed.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable

External References