What a Week, Huh?

About

What a Week, Huh? refers to a panel from The Adventures of Tintin comics depicting characters Tintin and Captain Haddock that was recaptioned with a humorous exchange from a 2009 episode of the sitcom 30 Rock. The recaptioned panel gained significant popularity as a reaction image used to express tiredness and being overwhelmed, but is also used as a template for redraws. In November 2020, the Twitter gimmick account @whataweekhuh gained viral popularity.

Origin

On October 22nd, 2009, episode two "Into the Crevasse" of season 4 of the American television comedy series 30 Rock premiered.^[1] In the episode, the character Liz Lemon, portrayed by Tina Fey, complains to character Jack Donaghy, portrayed by Alec Baldwin, about having finished a hard week of work, with Donaghey reminding her that it is still Wednesday (scene shown below, left).

Prior to November 5th, 2014,^[5] Tumblr^[2] account insanity-and-vanity posted a two-panel image based on the scene that gained over 45,000 likes and reblogs in seven years (shown below, right).

- What a week, huh?
- Lemon, it's Wednesday.

Between October 17th, 1940, and October 18th, 1941, Belgian cartoonist Hergé had The Crab with the Golden Claws, the ninth volume of The Adventures of Tintin, published in the Belgian newspaper supplement Le Soir Jeunesse.^[3] In the volume, the character Captain Haddock is first introduced, first shown procuring whiskey from his mate and drinking it alone in his cabin before Tintin gets in through the window and accuses him of narcotics trafficking (original panel shown below, left and center).

On June 21st, 2017, Tumblr^[4] gimmick account Incorrect Tintin (incorrectintin) combined the dialogue with the panel, with Captain Haddock complaining to Tintin about his hard week (recaptioned panel shown below, right).

Spread

In the following years, the recaptioned panel received viral spread as a reaction, usually being posted on Wednesdays. For example, on December 19th, 2018, Redditor MyFriendStoleMyMeme reposted the image to the /r/me_irl^[6] subreddit, where it gained over 34,100 upvotes in six months.

On July 24th, 2019, Tumblr^[7] user sklaviiik posted the earliest found redraw of the recaptioned panel, a Nuclear Summer 1997 redraw that gained over 110 likes and reblogs in two years (shown below, left). On April 23rd, 2020, Redditor Razorshells7125 posted an edit referencing It Is Wednesday, My Dudes that received 540 upvotes in the /r/danktintinmemes^[8] subreddit in six months (shown below, right). More posts that combined the memes were made on Reddit.^[9]

On December 18th, 2019, Twitter^[10][11] gimmick account What a week, huh? all Wednesdays (@whataweekhuh) was created, posting the image every Wednesday. The account remained largely unnoticed until on November 4th, 2020, the day following the 2020 United States presidential election, the account made a post^[12] that received over 5,500 retweets and 15,700 likes. All following weekly posts made by the account received at least 4,000 retweets, with all posts made after March 3rd, 2021,^[13] gaining at least 20,000 retweets. As of June 15th, 2021, the account accumulated over 157,000 followers.

Starting in late 2020, following the popularization of the meme by the @whataweekhuh gimmick account, it achieved notable popularity in edits and redraws, with multiple viral examples posted on Tumblr, Twitter and Reddit.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References