About

This Should Be Illegal (This Is the Same Person) refers to a series of memes parodying a tweet commenting with the catchphrase "this should be illegal" and "this is the same person" on two photographs of a female streamer, one with and one without makeup. The parody format achieved virality on Twitter in mid-June 2023.

Origin

On June 12th and 13th, 2023, streamer @sairaspooks and political commentator Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) had an argument on Twitter after Cheong criticized^[1] the design of the main protagonist of the upcoming video game Fable. After @sairaspooks tweeted^[2] a photograph of Cheong and wrote "bro you look like this, worry about yourself," Cheong replied^[3] with a photograph of @sairaspooks without makeup, commenting on make-up usage by the streamer. The latter post received over 1,000 retweets, 2,700 quote tweets and 29,600 likes in three days.

Later on June 13th, Twitter^[4] user @LionsSpectre tweeted photographs of @sairaspooks with and without makeup applied, writing "This should be illegal (This is the same person)," implying that the use of makeup to appear to be more conventionally attractive should not be allowed. The tweet (shown below) earned over 330 retweets, 5,900 quote tweets and 5,900 likes in three days.

Spread

Starting on June 14th, 2023, the tweet became a subject of parodies as users captioned pairs of images with the phrase. For example, on that day, Twitter^[5] user @dancow posted an Alex Jones 45 Days Later meme that received over 200 retweets and 5,400 likes in two days (shown below, left). Later that day, Twitter user @firagawalkwthme posted an image of a painted tunnel from the Looney Tunes with the caption. The tweet (shown below, right) received over 1,400 retweets and 26,600 likes in two days.

The catchphrase has also been used to caption Transgender Transition Timelines. For example, on June 14th, Twitter^[6] user @michellexotter posted images of themselves before and after the transition, with the post gaining over 310 retweets and 10,900 likes in two days (shown below, left).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References