Walter White's Death / Bro Thinks He's Walter White

Editor's Note: This entry contains spoilers for Breaking Bad, The Boys, The Walking Dead; read at your own caution.

About

Walter White's Death or Bro Thinks He's Walter White refers to a series of exploitable memes referencing the final scene in Breaking Bad, where Walter White dies while lying on the floor in a meth lab after saving Jesse and killing a group of neo-nazi meth manufacturers. The memes were popularized on YouTube and TikTok in late 2022 and depict characters other than Walter White, often in a similar position as White when he dies, as the camera pans out to the Badfinger song "Baby Blue."

Origin

On September 29th, 2013, the final episode of Breaking Bad, titled Felina, aired on AMC. In the episode, Walter White rescue Jesse Pinkman from a gang of neo-nazis by using a remote-operated M60 machine gun concealed in the trunk of his car. In doing so, he accidentally gets shot by the gun along with the nazis. After Jesse escapes, White walks through the meth lab, places his hand on one of the chemical tanks and collapses on the floor from his injuries. In the final scene, the song "Baby Blue" by Badfinger plays as White lies dying on the floor, the camera panning out from his face into the sky. The scene was uploaded to YouTube^[1] by Rotten Tomatoes TV on June 26th, 2021, where it received over 1.5 million views in over one year.

On August 8th, 2022, YouTuber^[2] JJ7 uploaded an edit of A-Train's death scene from The Boys to make it resemble White's death scene, titling the video, "bro think he walter white 💀," garnering over 538,000 views in a year (shown below). This is the earliest known example of the meme.

Spread

The trend spread over the following months on YouTube and TikTok. On October 28th, 2022, YouTuber^[3] Clashed PR uploaded a version using a scene from The Walking Dead, garnering over 622,000 views in 10 months (shown below, left). On December 5th, YouTuber^[4] Official Kyte Shitpost posted a compilation of similar death clips using the format, garnering over 1.7 million views in eight months (shown below, right).

On January 14th, 2023, TikToker^[5] @steve.thompson51 posted a clip using the meme format over a clip from a soccer match, garnering over 2.1 million views in seven months (shown below).

On March 29th, YouTuber^[6] Damp75 posted a version of the meme using a clip of Penguinz0, garnering over 630,000 views in five months (shown below, left). On April 4th, YouTuber^[7] Arcade Assassin posted a version that gained over 1.5 million views in four months (shown below, right).

On August 5th, Redditor u/Academic_Tip_9823 posted an image macro to /r/breakingbadmemes^[8] of a MrBeast thumbnail where he strikes a similar pose to White's death pose, writing, "Mrbeast thinks hes walter white ☠" garnering over 230 upvotes in a month (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References