The Brief: Taken from a screenshot of an animated educational video, this meme is used to convey something backfiring tremendously in someone's face.
DEEP DIVE
Though the characters in this meme seem innocent enough, the context behind the meme much darker.
This dank meme format, currently trending on Reddit, comes from a series of screenshots, taken from a Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell YouTube video, “What if We Detonated All Nuclear Bombs at Once”.
my poor eyes from r/dankmemes
“Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell” is a German YouTube channel known for producing educational videos tackling various political, scientific, and philosophical topics.
In this particular video, they explore the possibilities behind what might happen if we detonated all of the world’s nuclear bombs at once.
Kurzgesagt has a niche following, so it didn’t take long for memes to begin popping up once the video dropped on March 31st.
In this meme, the image macro shows a bird pressing a button which ignites a nuclear reaction. The meme is meant to imply that someone has made a bad choice and the results quite literally “blow up” in their face. The magnitude of the blast is huge, similar to a nuclear explosion. Talk about getting clapped!
F in the chat from r/teenagers
It’s clear that animated bird memes are trending, what with the recent Duolingo Owl memes, too!
There are several variations of this meme – some of which feature additional images and others which have been animated by meme-makers:
Happens every time (kurzgesagt is a blessing) from r/dankmemes