About

Uncle Terry refers to two images of middle-aged Black men, both of whom have been referred to as "my uncle Terry" in memes. Notably, a selfie of one of the men wearing glasses in a car dealership captioned "This My Uncle Terry, Everyone Say Hi Uncle Terry has been used as a component of various memes since 2019.

Origin

On November 28th, 2018, Tumblr^[1] user santas-clauze posted a screenshot of an Instagram advertisement for a car dealership depicting a middle-aged Black man in glasses and captioned "Cars" (shown below, left). The photograph (shown below, right) was originally posted by Ohio-based car salesperson mrbuick1969 on Instagram^[2] and used as an ad. The post (shown below; photograph shown below, right) received over 2,700 likes and reblogs on Tumblr in six years.

On January 22nd, 2019, Tumblr^[3] user golfgalaxy posted an edited This My Fork meme, replacing the third panel (originally "This my plate") with the photograph and recaptioning it, "This my uncle Terry, everyone say hi Terry." The post (shown below) received over 9,300 reblogs and 13,400 likes in five years.

Spread

The meme saw viral spread online. For example, on May 6th, 2020, the Instagram^[4] page surrealsapps reposted the image, garnering over 48,300 likes in four years.

Starting in early February 2019, the panel saw further spread as it was used as a part of various meme formats. For example, on February 3rd, Redditor lastresortbbq posted a meme that received over 20 upvotes in /r/comedyheaven^[5] in five years (shown below, left). At that time, a video of another Black man wearing glasses gained viral popularity, with the man also being referred to as "Uncle Terry" in memes (example^[6] shown below, right).

The "This My Uncle Terry, Everyone Say Hi Terry" panel saw more use in memes in the following years, often being used as a non-sequitur punchline. For example, on May 10th, 2020, Redditor DarkLink457 posted a Western Main Character meme that received over 11,000 upvotes in the /r/Gamingcirclejerk^[7] subreddit in four years (shown below, left).

On September 26th, 2021, X^[8] user @SourceLocator posted a Nintendo AAA meme that garnered over 2,600 reposts and 26,000 likes in three years (shown below, right).

The panel maintained its popularity in memes in the early 2020s.

Various Examples

Templates

Search Interest

External References