Unpopular Opinions

About

An unpopular opinion is a colloquial term for any belief or viewpoint that is considered generally disagreeable or unwelcome by the majority within a community. Online, the term is typically invoked by posters in a self-referential manner as a preface to opinionated statements that are potentially controversial or otherwise against-the-grain beliefs, using a variety of meme templates ranging from image macros to Twitter games

Origin

Expressing unpopular opinions has long been a practice of social media users. Prior to meme formats, forum threads devoted to posting unpopular opinions were regularly posted online. For example, on May 28th, 2006, a thread on music discussion site RateYouMusic appeared in which a since-deleted user listed some of their unpopular opinions and encouraged others to do the same, generating over 1,800 pages of comments.^[1] Another thread appeared on PAHardcore^[2] on October 15th, 2007, generating 20 pages of comments.

Am I The Only One Around Here?

Unpopular opinions began seeing use in meme formats starting with several advice animals in the early 2010s. One of the earliest of these to spread was Am I The Only One Around Here?. The first image macro using the quote was posted by Redditor BFM11 to the /r/AdviceAnimals subreddit titled "Angry Walter" on March 24th, 2012. The caption expressed the poster's frustration with the misuse of the word "literally" and used a screen capture from a different scene in the movie.

On April 23rd, 2012, Redditor phizzleout posting an image macro to the /r/AdviceAnimals subreddit with the caption "Am I the only one around here / who doesn't upvote reposts?" (shown below, left). Within two hours, Redditor TLAMP28 submitted a similar image macro to the /r/AdviceAnimals subreddit with the caption "Am I the only one around here / who is sick of reposts within the same day!" (shown below, right).

Various Examples

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Advice Animals

Unpopular Opinion Puffin

Unpopular Opinion Puffin is an advice animal image macro series featuring a photograph of a baby puffin and various captions conveying opinions that are thought to be unpopular, in similar vein to other non-conformist advice animal characters like Confession Bear and Angry Walter. The image appeared online as early as July 2010 on That Cute Site. On July 24th, 2013, it was used as an image macro for the first time in a submission to the /r/AdviceAnimals subreddit. In the post, the OP suggested using it as an alternative to Confession Bear, which had been frequently used on the subreddit as a way to express an unpopular opinion disguised as a confession.

Fuck Me, Right?

Fuck Me, Right? is an image macro series featuring a screen capture of Jonah Hill sarcastically laughing in the 2007 comedy film Superbad. The top caption usually contains a confession about an unpopular opinion or noobish behavior, accompanied by the bottom caption “Fuck me, right?” The expression is meant to convey self-pity and resignation to the way the speaker is perceived by the majority. On March 9th, 2012, Redditor dwydwyy submitted an image macro to the /r/AdviceAnimals subreddit, featuring a screen capture of Jonah Hill in the Superbad scene accompanied by the caption “Tries to make frontpage without a Kony meme / Fuck me, right?” (shown below) in reference to conversations about the Kony 2012 video. Prior to being archived, the post received over 11,800 up votes and 120 comments.

On August 12th, 2012, a Facebook page for “Fuck me, right?” was created and on the following day, FunnyJunk user lostfaux submitted an image macro with the caption “I like to watch english dubbed anime / Fuck me, right?” (shown below, left) in referring to the widespread preference of English-subtitled animes over dubbed versions. Within two months, the post received over 49,000 views and 460 comments. On August 29th, 9gag user n_nobody submitted a post titled “P*rn Logic" featuring a screen capture of adult film star Sasha Grey with the caption “My car broke down / Fuck me, right?” (shown below, right), which is meant to be interpreted in a literal sense. Within one month, the post received over 42,000 up votes and 11,000 Facebook shares.

Characters

You Know What? I'm Just Gonna Say It

You Know What? I'm Just Gonna Say It refers to a screenshot from a popular 2015 Vine video that resurfaced on Twitter in March of 2017 as a reaction image. On June 28th, 2015, Andrew Proctor posted a Vine of a high school kid threatening another with "You know what? I'm just gonna say it. I don't care that you broke your elbow." The Vine gained 111,900 likes, 61,700 revines and 49,600,000 loops (YouTube embed shown below).

In March of 2017, a screenshot of the kid in the video began circulating on Twitter as an image paired with people saying "You know what, I'm just gonna say it…" before proffering a potentially unpopular opinion. The first known post like this was posted by @pfharcyde on March 20th in reference to the television show Dancing With the Stars (shown below).

Over the course of the following week, dozens more variations of the meme appeared on Twitter, with people offering their unpopular opinion with the image while others twisted the format into a wholesome memes. On March 28th, the wave of jokes was covered by Twitter Moments.

You Guys Are Just Mean

You Guys Are Just Mean refers to an exploitable image of a teenager giving a powerpoint presentation wherein the main slide will state a potentially unpopular opinion while the subheading will read a variation of "You guys are just X." The image originally read "I'm so tired give me an A" while the subheading read "Sad Students." The image was posted in various compilations of images showing "people who just don't care anymore" in the fall of 2015. For example, Pleated Jeans posted the image in such a compilation on October 14th, 2015 (shown below).

It was first posted to Tumblr on December 14th, 2016 by user stacypartin and gained over 730,000 notes. It began becoming an exploitable over a year later, in Spring of 2018. An early example of the exploitable variation made a point with Ke$ha's 'Tik Tok' was posted by user mutsukin in March of 2018 and gained over 64,000 notes, though the original post has been deleted (shown below, left). Another popular post from March of 2018 using the Legend of Zelda game Skyward Sword gained over 9,300 notes (shown below, right).

Other popular posts posts include a post from April 4th by user @pupcraft that went viral on Twitter made a point about dogs and cats gained over 67,000 retweets and 158,000 likes (shown below, left). Another popular post from Imgur made a point about Ready Player One (shown below, right)

On Twitter

1 Like = 1 Unpopular Opinion

On Twitter, threads and social games will periodically appear wherein users invite each other to post their unpopular opinions. One of the most popular variations of this trend is "1 Like = 1 Unpopular Opinion," in which users will post an image with the phrase, and offer an unpopular opinion for every like they receive on that tweet (example shown below).

A wave of these tweets spread in October of 2017, leading Slate^[3] to publish an article coming out against the meme, saying that the meme was no different than what Twitter is actually like, as people regularly express their unpopular opinions on the site.

May 2018 Resurgence

In May of 2018, Twitter users again participated in a wave of unpopular opinion posts by starting threads inviting others to share unpopular opinions about certain topics. For example, Twitter user @OhHeyDJ posted a thread inviting users to post unpopular opinions on games, gaining 263 retweets and over 2,700 replies (shown below, left). User @shmoovey3 started a thread asking for unpopular food opinions, gaining over 178 retweets and 1,100 replies (shown below, right). The popularity of these types of threads was covered by Twitter Moments^[4] and Daily Dot.^[5]

Unpopular Opinion Swords

Unpopular Opinion Swords, also known as Flynn Surrounded by Swords, is an reaction image and an object-labeling meme featuring a frame from the 2010 Disney animated fantasy film Tangled. The shot sees the character Flynn with a number of swords pointing to his neck as he looks unphased and comfortable. Online, some use the image as a prompt to engage with people and their unpopular opinions.

Unpopular Opinion Guns

Unpopular Opinion Guns, also known as John Wick Surrounded By Guns, refers to a series of memes, fan art and tributes based on a promotional posted for John Wick: Chapter Two film in which 20 men are aiming weapons at the head of the main protagonist John Wick, portrayed by Keanu Reeves. In the following years, the image has been used as an exploitable and object labeling meme, with Unpopular Opinion versions gaining popularity on iFunny, /r/okbuddyretard subreddit and Twitter in late September 2019.

Search Interest

External References