Urinal Etiquette
About
Urinal Etiquette is an exploitable image series based on a four-pane comic depicting an awkward moment of two strangers using the urinals immediately adjacent to each other out of an entire row in the men's bathroom.
Origin
While the authorship of the original comic remains unknown, the image has been circulating online since as early as 2010 with the earliest known instance posted on the Brazilian humor site Capinaremos[1] on March 2nd. The four-pane illustration begins with a man using a urinal in an empty men's bathroom, before a second man enters and intently chooses to use the urinal right next to the first man, despite there being an entirely row of unoccupied urinals.
Precursor
The proper etiquettes surrounding the use of urinals in the men's bathroom has been a long-standing topic of online discussions and jokes, with the earliest known example found in a PSA-style animation video produced by Kurt Nellis and uploaded to YouTube on July 12th, 2006.
In addition, xkcd webcomic artist Randall Munroe also covered the urinal etiquette at length in a blog article titled "Urinal Protocol Vulnerability,"[5] posted to his website on September 2nd, 2009 (shown below).
Spread
Between 2010 and 2013, the image was posted on dozens of internet humor sites across many language zones. On January 2nd, 2013, Shaq O'Neal posted the image to his Facebook page with the message: "This is an automatic fight in my book…….LMFAO" (shown below).[2][3]
On May 13th, 2013, the image was resubmitted to FunnyJunk in a post titled "Maximum Overtroll."[4] On October 6th, 2015, Tumblr user pi4nobl4ck[8] posted an edited version of the image with the second character declaring his veganism to the man next to him (shown below). The post garnered over 39,000 notes within the first two weeks. On October 15th, the exploitable comic was picked up by the Tumblr meme research group[9] Meme Documentation. Throughout the month, more than a dozen of alternately captioned and photoshopped parodies surfaced on Tumblr.
Various Examples
Search Interest
External References
[1] Capinaremos – This Is Unethical
[2] Huffington Post – Shaquille O'Neal Peeing Facebook Post Spurs Anti-Gay Responses
[3] Jezebel – Shaq Posts His Feelings on Urinal Etiquette; Homophobic Trolls Go Nuts
[4] FunnyJunk – Maximum Overtroll
[5] XKCD – Urinal Protocol Vulnerability
[6] I am bored – The Worst 2 Minutes Of Every Guy`s Day [Pic]
[7] NikeTalk Forums – Restroom Etiquette
[8] Tumblr – Guigo Reader's Post
[9] Memedocumentation – Urinal Meme Explained
[10] Bodybuilding Forum – How do you decide which Urinal you choose?
[11] BuzzFeed – Urinal Etiquette
Top Comments
GameGodMike
Oct 20, 2015 at 04:38PM EDT
Ghost Walker
Oct 20, 2015 at 03:27PM EDT