About

"You Can Now Play as Luigi" refers to a screen from the 2007 video game Super Mario Galaxy, which notifies the player that Luigi is now a playable character. Starting in 2018, the screen has been used on Reddit, YouTube and other sites in memes exploring the notion that after death you get to play as Luigi.

Origin

On November 1st, 2007, the platformer video game Super Mario Galaxy was released by Nintendo for the Wii console.^[1] In the game, upon completing the game once, collecting all 120 stars and defeating Bowser again, the player is notified that they can now play as Luigi in a post-credits scene. The notification is accompanied by Luigi saying, "Super Luigi galaxy!"

On November 17th, 2018, Redditor Frohg posted a meme about reincarnation that used the screen as a punchline, with the post garnering over 38,000 upvotes in the /r/me_irl^[2] subreddit in six years (shown below).

Spread

The meme saw viral spread through reposts in the following months. For example, on February 27th, 2019, Redditor Paullebricoleur_ reposted the image to the /r/memes^[3] subreddit, where it received over 12,000 upvotes in five years. On August 27th, Tumblr^[4] user paulthebukkit reposted the meme, with the post garnering over 22,000 reblogs and 35,000 likes in five years.

Starting in 2019, more memes using the screen were posted on Reddit: for example, on August 29th, 2019, an unknown Redditor made a post that gained over 42,000 upvotes in the /r/dankmemes^[5] subreddit prior to removal (shown below, left).

On February 8th, 2020, Redditor Mubi49 posted a Keanu Reeves meme that garnered over 32,000 upvotes in /r/dankmemes^[6] four years (shown below, right).

On October 14th, 2019, YouTube^[7] user Slimesauce posted the earliest found notable video meme based on the screen, a Fortnite Blackout edit that accumulated over 122,000 views in five years (shown below).

The notification saw more use in image and video memes in the early 2020s, appearing in memes on Reddit, YouTube, Tumblr and other sites.

On November 27th, 2020, X^[8] user @ZeroJanitor posted a version of the notification recaptioned, "You can no longer play as Luigi," which also saw use in memes.

Various Examples

Templates

Search Interest

External References