About

This Happened To My Buddy Eric refers to an Insane Leterrboxd Review of the 2019 film Joker posted to Letterboxd in April 2020. A screenshot of the review gained viral fame over the course of the year, resulting in a number of memes referencing it, including photoshops and image macros, as well as the phrase becoming a popular copypasta.

Origin

On April 28th, 2020, Letterboxd^[1] user CloserLook Media posted a review for Joker simply writing, "This happened to my buddy Eric," implying that their friend Eric became radicalized like the Joker (shown below). The review gained over 10,700 likes in a year, becoming the second most popular for the film.

On May 19th, Twitter^[2] user @InsaneLetterboxd, an account that posts funny Letterboxd reviews, posted a screenshot of the review, garnering over 173,000 likes and 23,000 retweets in a year. That same day, the screenshot was posted to a number of other sites, including Reddit on /r/moviescirclejerk,^[3] gaining over 650 upvotes in the same span of time.

Spread

On May 19th, 2020, Redditor u/literal2020 posted a photoshop to /r/sbubby^[5] of the Joker poster replacing the title with "Eric," referencing the review (shown below).

On May 20th, Redditor u/bugsbunny696 posted the image to /r/ComedyHell,^[4] garnering over 1,600 upvotes in a year. On October 20th, iFunny^[10] user AJSmashing posted a photoshop making it appear as if the review is attached to the film The Thing, (shown below, left). On November 3rd, iFunny^[11] user ShinGodzilla posted a similar photoshop attaching the review to the book I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream (shown below, right).

On November 3rd, Instagram^[6] page scoobydoofruitsnacks posted the original screenshot, garnering over 165,000 likes in six months.

On December 22nd, Redditor u/ThatRedditGuy48 posted an image macro to /r/titanfolk^[7] with the title, "This happened to my buddy Eric," referencing the review and offering an example of the meme as a catchphrase separate from it used to imply something related to the image happened to Eric, garnering over 1,500 upvotes in five months (shown below).

On January 2nd, 2021, Twitter^[9] user @FinJCam posted a photoshop attaching the review to Steven Universe: The Movie, garnering over 1,700 likes and 200 retweets in four months (shown below).

The phrase increased in use on Twitter^[12][13] around this time, applying the same joke to new images (examples shown below, left and right).

On March 30th, 2021, Redditor u/ItsBlitz21 posted a screenshot to /r/beetlejuicing^[8] in which someone says the phrase, garnering over 3,400 upvotes in two months (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References