Welcome to Downtown Coolsville

About

Welcome To Downtown Coolsville is a reaction image depicting animated character Hogarth Hughes from the 1999 film The Iron Giant, directed by Brad Bird. Typically, it is often used ironically to mock individuals or groups who do something that they think is cool but is actually outdated, cliche or cringey. The format features a caption above describing a certain action, followed by the reaction image below, but can also be used as a standalone catchphrase.

Origin

The original clip that the meme is pulled from is seen during The Iron Giant, released on July 31st, 1999, specifically the scene where Hogarth Hughes (voiced by Eli Marienthal) is confronted by Dean McCoppin (Harry Connick Jr.) when being indiscreet in the junkyard with the Iron Giant. During the scene (shown below), Hughes can be heard uttering the line during the film.

The earliest example of the still being used as a meme format comes from a post by Redditor^[1] HeyItsSpook on June 2nd, 2018, to the r/Memes_ Of_ The_ Dank subreddit, receiving over 2,200 upvotes and 68 comments (seen below). That same day, Imgur^[2] user WaronTerah reposted this meme to the site and received over 116,000 views, 1,700 upvotes and 100 comments.

Spread

On September 15th, 2018, Imgur^[3] user Bunches0Lunches uploaded another version of the meme to the site, where it received over 2,800 views. On December 19th, 2018, Redditor^[4] The_AwkwardAZN posted a variant to the /r/memes sub (shown below), receiving over 6,200 upvotes and 51 comments.

On April 20th, 2019, Redditor^[5] MrSprinklesYay posted a version to the r/me_irl subreddit, receiving over 54,600 upvotes and 824 comments, as well as several Reddit awards. Redditor^[6] Thecode123 posted another variant to the /r/dankmemes sub on September 7th, 2019, receiving over 12,400 upvotes and 129 comments (seen below).

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References