About

Wouldn't That Make You Gay? refers to a series of screenshots from the 2014 animated film The Penguins of Madagascar of the penguins sitting in a life raft, with Skipper subtitled as saying, "wouldn't that make you gay?" Starting in 2018 the images became a popular image macro, with the word "gay" often changed. It is closely related to the Well Boys, We Did It. Racism Is No More meme.

Origin

On November 26th, 2014, The Penguins of Madagascar, a spinoff of the popular Madagascar film series, released in theatres. In one scene the penguins end up on a life raft in the ocean with other animals (shown below).^[2]

On October 16th, 2018, Instagram user @nass_is_secretly_a_pikmin^[1] posted the first part of a parody of the Penguins of Madagascar entitled "Operation N-W.O.R.D." also known as "Skipper Stops Racism." This began the "Well Boys, We Did It. Racism Is No More" meme.

The video begins with footage of the life raft scene with a lip-dub over Skipper's dialogue saying, "but Mr. Trump, wouldn't that make you gay?" The post received more than 18,000 likes and 197,000 views in less than one year, but has since been removed (re-upload shown below).^[3]

On October 22nd, 2018, @nass_is_secretly_a_pikmin uploaded the isolated clip of Skipper saying, "wouldn't that make you gay?" to Instagram^[4] (shown below). The video gained over 76,000 views in roughly 2 years.

Spread

On December 14th, 2018, Lil Boyardee uploaded a video to YouTube^[5] featuring slowed-down footage of @nass_is_secretly_a_pikmin's scene, garnered over 11,000 views in 2 years (shown below).

On January 5th, 2019, Cellular Lukeleus uploaded an image macro to the I'm Not Straight / Okay, Maybe I Am Straight entry on Know Your Meme^[6] featuring screenshots of Skipper sitting in the life raft with subtitles reading, "wouldn't that make you gay?" and the @nass_is_secretlye_a_pikmin's watermark, garnering over 4,800 views in 2 years (shown below). This is the earliest known use of the screenshots in an image macro.

Image macros featuring a variety of screenshots from the video slowly spread over the course of the next 2 years.

On July 7th, 2019, /u/QuestForDestiny uploaded an image macro to /r/dankmemes^[7] with the title, "Wouldn’t that make you GAY?" using a close-up screenshot of Skipper saying "gay" from the video, garnering over 130 upvotes in a year and a half (shown below, left).

On September 2nd, Brother Jauffre's Meme Supply Chest posted an Elder Scrolls themed image macro using the scene to Facebook,^[8] garnering over 140 reactions and 20 shares in a comparable span of time (shown below, right). On September 5th, YepJustIgnoreMe uploaded a template for the meme to Imgur.^[9]

In late January 2021, the image macro saw an increase in use on Reddit as multiple variations gained high upvote counts. For example, on January 22nd, 2021, /u/Zaniak88 made a post titled, "I diagnose you with gay" to /r/dankmemes^[10] using the penguin images, garnering over 46,800 upvotes in 22 days (shown below, left).

On the same day, /u/PowerfulOperation8 uploaded a similar image macro to /r/dankmemes,^[11] garnering over 9,700 upvotes in a comparable span of time (shown below, right).

As the meme grew in popularity, users began replacing the word "gay" to expand on the possibilities of the format and keep it fresh. For example, a post on February 6th by /u/aryan_122 to /r/dankmemes^[12] using the image macro with an altered word garnering over 22,000 upvotes in 5 days (shown below, left).

A similarly changed image macro posted by /u/HarmonyNugget to /r/dankmemes^[13] on February 8th garnered over 112,000 views in 2 days (shown below, right).

Template

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References