Thinkers on a Train

About

Thinkers on a Train refers to an exploitable meme template showing five stick figures in a subway car having the same thought that's written in a thought bubble above them. The original image is a cartoon from the webcomic xkcd and is titled "Sheeple." It was uploaded to the internet in 2009 and trended as a meme template going into the 2010s and 2020s. Meme creators replaced the words in the thought bubble, usually identifying non-unique thoughts that many people have, often labeling them as NPCs. In March 2023, Elon Musk tweeted a version of the meme, furthering its usage and virality.

Origin

On July 15th, 2009, the webcomic xkcd posted the one-frame comic "Sheeple" to its website.^[1] The comic showed five stick figures on train all having the same thought, present in a collective thought bubble above them. The text read, "Look at these people. Glassy-eyed automatons going about their daily lives, never stopping to look around and think! I'm the only conscious human in a world of sheep" (shown below).

The one-frame comic was reshared to multiple Blogspot^[2] and Wordpress^[3] blogs going into 2009. Currently, the first discovered meme that exploited the template was uploaded to Imgur^[4] on March 19th, 2016, by user fbiMadeMeChangeMyName who replaced the text to read, "I wonder if anyone knows. how high I am right now." The post received over 45 upvotes in seven years (shown below).

Spread

Going into the late 2010s, the template achieved more virality. For instance, on November 14th, 2019, Twitter^[5] user @HOSTAGEKILLER tweeted an iteration in which the Damn Shawty OK! image was put inside the thought bubble. The tweet received roughly 5,200 likes in four years (shown below, left). On March 19th, 2022, iFunnyer^[6] @SamirAlHajid posted an iteration with text reading, "They have no idea I'm about to fucking snap," earning roughly 29,100 smiles in one year (shown below, right).

On June 11th, 2022, an iteration with text about everyone being normies instead of being schizo and esoteric was posted to Facebook^[7] by the page Daily Reminder. The post received roughly 1,900 reactions and 1,900 shares in eight months (shown below, left). On June 12th, 2022, Elon Musk tweeted the iteration, captioning it, "True experts even read wiki citations," and gained roughly 122,600 likes in eight months (shown below, right).

Continuing into late 2022 and early 2023, the template earned further iterations that went viral in their own right.

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References