Where Banana

About

Where Banana refers to a photoshopped image taken from a 2017 episode of BBC Breakfast showing three orangutans sitting around a coffee table, the orangutan farthest to the right saying, "where banana." The image became popular in image macros, photoshops, and as an exploitable over the following years.

Origin

On January 19th, 2017, the television show BBC Breakfast aired a segment (shown below) where the hosts show off an animatronic "spy animal" from then-upcoming wildlife series Spy in the Wild,^[4] a show where realistic animal robots with cameras in them spy on and interact with real animals. The clip was shared to Facebook^[1] that day.

On October 8th, Redditor /u/thattaylornerd posted a screenshot to /r/boottoobig^[2] titled, "Roses are red, I put rubbish in the bin" of a now-deleted tweet with text reading, "When you're just trying to chill w/ friends and the dissociation kicks in" along with a screenshot of the orangutan and hosts on BBC Breakfast, garnering over 3,000 upvotes in three years (shown below).

The image did not gain significant popularity until the end of 2019 due to a popular photoshop.

On December 3rd, 2019, Redditor /u/Pogfamous uploaded a photoshopped version of the screenshot to /r/okbuddyretard ^[3] in which the hosts are replaced with clones of the orangutan and the words "where banana" are displayed above the original orangutan's head, garnering over 3,300 upvotes in a year (shown below).

Spread

On December 21st, 2019, Redditor /u/HansMcBean posted an image macro to /r/memes^[5] using the image, garnering over 33,500 upvotes in roughly a year (shown below). The next day the meme was reposted to /r/MemeEconomy,^[6] garnering over 400 upvotes in the same rough span of time.

Over the course of the next year, people continued to upload new variations of the meme, particularly on /r/dankmemes, where they gained significant attention. In many posts the word "banana" is used as a euphemism for "penis," a trend that stuck with the format throughout the year.

For example, on June 18th, 2020, a now-deleted Redditor uploaded an image macro referencing the Nintendo Switch to /r/dankmemes^[7] garnering over 30,900 upvotes in eight months (shown below, left).

On August 21st, Redditor /u/OverPaidMale uploaded a three-panel image macro using the image to /r/dankmemes^[8] garnering over 27,600 upvotes in six months (shown below, right).

On October 28th, YouTuber^[12] 0CEAN M4N uploaded a video titled "where banana" consisting of a slow zoom over the meme and an original song, garnering over 30,000 views in four months (shown below).

Near the end of 2020 leading into 2021, memers began to step away from penis jokes and started using the image more as an exploitable, replacing the words "where" or "banana" in image macros to change the context (examples from late 2020 shown below, left and right).

On February 24th, 2021, Redditor /u/Wannabedankestmemer posted an image macro to /r/dankmemes^[9] in which they change "banana" to "6.4GB" garnering over 26,600 upvotes in eight days (shown below).

On February 25th, Redditors /u/notsimmi and /u/mijuzz7 uploaded original image macros to /r/dankmemes^[10][11] using exploited versions of "where banana," garnering over 56,000 upvotes and 25,700 upvotes in a week respectively (shown below, left and right).

Various Examples

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Search Interest

External References