About

Esos Bastardos Me Mintieron or Those Bastards Lied to Me is a reaction image featuring Richard "Old Man" Harrison from Pawn Stars saying the quote. The image is paired with captions of false or misleading statements, similar to the So That Was a Fucking Lie meme.

Origin

On December 7th, 2009, episode 17 “Old Man's Booty” of the 1st season of Pawn Stars was aired.^[1] In the episode, Rick and Corey Harrison decide to take the Old Man's 1966 Chrysler Imperial for restoration in secret, as a gift for his 50th wedding anniversary; however, they tell him it was sold to a customer. Eventually, Rick and the staff, surprise the Old Man with the restored car and tell him the truth, to which the he reacts saying "That little bastard lied to me" in an interview segment. However, in the Latin American dub of the show, Richard instead says "Esos bastardos me mintieron", which translates to "Those bastards lied to me" (shown below).

The clip surged in popularity after being featured at the end of the episode "A Treasure Remembered" which aired on June 27th, 2018, in memory of Richard Harrison after his death.

It's a great 50th anniversary gift, but I'm still angry. Those bastards lied to me.

On October 29th, 2018, the Facebook page Momeros Del Genero :v^[2] posted the template with Richard's quote and also shared a link to a now-defunct website hosting a blank template. On October 31st, the page Memerología UNAM^[3] shared the first known example of the meme with the caption "When you read the entirety of the Divine Comedy but no fucking joke appears v:<" and a SDLG watermark (shown below).

Spread

The template first began spreading among Spanish-speaking users on Facebook before it was used on English-speaking social media. For example, on November 14th, the Facebook page Indie 1975^[4] posted a meme with the caption "When you got to The Neighbourhood's concert and they aren't in black-and-white" (shown below, left) which gained over 2,700 reactions and was shared over 1,700 times in less than two years.

On November 20th, Memedroid user Choppercrack^[5] posted an image photoshopped to mock image files, gaining over 1,000 points (shown below, left). A month later, an English version (shown below, right) was posted by Redditor Hancho_Nick to /r/memes^[6] on December 29th, and gained over 16,000 points (95% upvote ratio).

The format saw further spread on meme-based subreddits over the following several days. For example, it was posted to /r/memeeconomy where it gained over 20,000 points.^[7] It was also posted to /r/me_irl, gaining over 9,500 points.^[8] Variations also began appearing in the following days. Popular examples posted to /r/dankmemes include a post by reece8316^[9] that gained over 3,600 points (shown below, left). Another by pibuster^[10] gained over 43,000 points (shown below, right).

Other users photoshopped the image to twist the meme. Redditor Harry34186^[11] made a joke that gained over 5,800 points (shown below, left). User MrFreedomMcBaguette^[12] posted a variation in /r/historymemes (shown below, right).

Templates

Various Examples

Search Interest

Queries for "Estos bastardos me mintieron" began surged during the last days of October, peaked on early December 2018 and then declined. Searches for the English version of the phrase "Those bastards lied to me" began in the final days of 2018.

External References