Top 20 Memes With Disturbing Backstories

20 Memes With Disturbing Back Stories

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today, we’re ranking the most iconic memes that unfortunately have deeply tragic origins.

#20: Distracted Boyfriend

This meme first gained prominence in mid-2017 and has since become a staple on the internet. The hilarious stock photo comes from a 2015 shoot by Spanish photographer Antonio Guilliem. The entire shoot focuses on an unfaithful boyfriend, with a variety of stock images showing the issues in their relationship. Some of them are even more comical than the original photo. For instance, there’s one of the boyfriend getting distracted mid-proposal, and another of his girlfriend catching him in the act of cheating. Thankfully, none of it is real. So, it’s not disturbing in that regard, but it’s still strange that they did a whole photoshoot about infidelity.

#19: Tough Entrance

This meme from 2019 shows a criminal hilariously trying to look tough in court, and failing miserably. Well, the story behind the comical entrance is far less amusing. The man in the video is named Jawad Bendaoud. He was on trial for harboring two terrorists, responsible for the 2015 Paris attacks. He was found guilty and was sentenced to four years in prison. A few months later, this stay was extended after insulting a guard. Bendaoud was also convicted of manslaughter in the 2000s. In reality, he’s a pretty unpleasant person.

#18: Joker Stair Dance

The 2019 “Joker” movie was a smash hit, earning over a billion dollars at the box office. Its most famous scene was potentially his dance on the stairs. It’s disturbing, as it comes straight after the point where he murdered someone. Additionally, there’s a Gary Glitter song playing in the background. For those unaware, Gary Glitter is one of the UK’s most hated celebrities, known as a prolific abuser. Since then, the stairs have become a tourist destination, alongside inspiring tons of memes. People even reenact the scene, which is alarming since the Joker is not at all the character you should be looking up to or replicating.

#17: Nodding Guy

The nod of approval has become fairly ancient as far as memes go. The GIF first became prominent in 2012, then quickly became ingrained in internet culture. Most of us are aware of the meme, but few know where it came from. It’s from the 1972 picture “Jeremiah Johnson,” which is based on the real-life story of American mountain man John “Liver-Eating” Johnson. He earned the nickname because of rumors that he ate the livers of his victims, who were often the Crow tribe of Montana. This is likely not true and was fabricated to alter his public image. Still, the ‘70s film covers some pretty dark topics, and his life was far from glamorous.

#16: Disaster Girl

This iconic photo shows a young girl, Zoë Roth, smiling sinisterly while a house burns behind her. It’s not hard to find humor in the damage, but there was an actual burning building. It’s not fake, but it was only on fire to train firefighters, as she mentions in a Buzzfeed interview. So, no real damage was done. The meme’s story got worse when Roth later sold it as an NFT for almost half a million dollars. Many are critical of such a decision, calling NFTs a scam and pointing out that it’s an image scores of people have already downloaded. To Roth’s credit, however, she did say she would be giving some of the proceeds to charity.

#15: Batman Slapping Robin

This classic meme has been parodied to death. So much so that many forget its original dialogue. It comes from the DC comic “World’s Finest #153,” first published in 1965. It tells the tale of a parallel universe where Batman thinks Superman caused his parents’ death. The original dialogue is of Robin telling Batman to give up on revenge. In 2008, it was flipped, and the dialogue changed, so Robin was asking him what his parents got him for Christmas. By 2009, it had become a meme with endless potential, which is still adored today.

#14: Wentworth Miller

This next one was so disturbing that it thankfully never became a full-fledged meme. You might be familiar with Wentworth Miller, most famous for playing the main character in “Prison Break.” In 2016, the LADbible Facebook page made a post body-shaming the actor, posting a picture of Miller from when he was struggling with his mental health. After Miller opened up about his struggles with depression, they very quickly took the meme down and issued a formal apology. So, it never became a meme in any meaningful way. It was simply a cruel post on a Facebook page, which the internet found too harsh to turn into a meme.

#13: Loss

It’s majorly impressive how long Loss has remained funny. The meme comes from a 2008 strip of the webcomic “Ctrl+Alt+Del”. The source material is focused on gaming humor, which is often enjoyed ironically online. It began in 2002, but by 2008 had started to focus on long story arcs. This led to the loss panel, focusing on the moment where the main character’s fiancée has a miscarriage. This highly serious strip gave a lot of readers tonal whiplash. It received huge criticism, particularly for using “fridging,” a misogynistic trend of harming women to motivate a man. The panel has since been recreated countless times, to the point where seven lines are the only indication you need that it’s a loss meme.

#12: I’m A’ Firin’ Mah Lazer

This next entry comes from the earliest days of internet memes, when YouTube was freshly launched and a meme was barely defined. While this meme's origin is hazy, we know it comes from roughly 2006. It’s an edit of a “Dragon Ball Z” clip, where the race of the character Cell has been altered in an extremely offensive manner. Cell then lets out a laser beam from his mouth, alongside the humorous statement “I’m A’ Firin’ Mah Lazer.” This phrase became a staple of the early internet, but the joke is tainted by its horrific origins.

#11: Ugandan Knuckles

The Sonic character Knuckles has a VRChat avatar that is side-splitting. This avatar then became the face of the meme, Ugandan Knuckles. This led to an outburst of people on VRChat, screaming “do you know the way” at people in fake African accents. Many found it hilarious, but it’s an overtly racist meme. Fascinatingly, the line was inspired by the Ugandan action movie “Who Killed Captain Alex?” The low-budget action flick spawned a whole bunch of memes and is worth a watch if you haven’t seen it already. It’s still remembered fondly, too, unlike Ugandan Knuckles.

#10: Trollface

Few memes have achieved the level of influence the trollface has acquired. It was made in Microsoft Paint by Carlos Ramirez in 2008. After posting it to his DeviantArt page and 4chan, it gradually became a meme, and the rest is history. Well, there’s a darker story to the trollface that’s rarely shared. It was inspired by a failed meme of a rodent, with a rather distasteful name, inspired by the character Mighty Mouse. This was also created by Ramirez, who later tried recreating it, but failed and made trollface instead. The rest is history, and now a significant part of 21st-century culture.

#9: Sexy Mugshot

In 2014, Stockton, California police posted the mugshot of gang member Jeremy Meeks. This went viral due to how ridiculously good-looking he was. But his violent past earns him a spot on this list. He was first imprisoned in 2002 for assaulting a teenager, serving two years. Then, 12 years later, he was arrested on weapons charges as part of a gang sweep. His criminal history didn’t stop the internet from adoring his mugshot, which went viral and led to the Twitter hashtag “feloncrushfriday.” In a Buzzfeed interview, Meeks mentioned receiving between 300 and 400 letters daily during his incarceration. In the end, he served 13 months, but on a positive note, he left crime and became a model after his release.

#8: Doge Has a Tragic Past

In 2013, Doge was all the rage. The adorable Shiba Inu became a template for tons of memes, frequently overlaid with Comic Sans text. Any picture of a Shiba Inu is fair game for a doge meme. The original image came from a specific Shiba Inu, named Kabosu. Unfortunately, Kabosu has a seriously tragic backstory. She was born in a puppy mill in 2005, which left her and her siblings on the street after it shut down. Many of her siblings perished, but Kabosu was saved in 2008. Images of the adorable pup made their way onto Tumblr in 2010, which spiralled into her becoming a global figure in 2013. Sadly, Kabosu passed away in 2024, after living a fairly long life for a dog.

#7: Star Wars Kid

This viral video made its way on the internet back in 2002, making it one of the earliest internet memes. It’s a 2-minute clip of a 14-year-old named Ghyslain Raza showing off his remarkable lightsaber talents. Woefully, it was released against his will, and he became the target of tons of tormentors. Raza lost friends, had to leave school, and ended up filing a lawsuit against the kids who leaked the tape. After enough time had passed, Raza became more open about his identity as “The Star Wars Kid.” He decided to spread awareness about the dangers of cyber harassment and our digital shadows. A documentary on the topic was released in 2022, and it has hopefully spread awareness of the dangers of social media.

#6: Leave Britney Alone

The 2000s media was pretty harsh towards Britney Spears, to put it mildly. This led to her getting slammed in 2007 after what critics believed was a poor performance. Britney Spears was entirely undeserving of the hate she received, which led to the iconic video, “Leave Britney Alone.” A day after the performance, Cara Cunningham, released the video defending Britney. It got over 2 million views in a day and made its creator a mini celebrity. It got parodied to death and is considered a staple of 2000s internet culture. However, it’s a shame that it only exists because of how cruel people were being towards Spears.

#5: Kony 2012

Joseph Kony is a pretty disgusting person, infamous for being a Ugandan warlord who isn’t opposed to using child soldiers. In 2012, Invisible Children began a campaign to raise awareness of him and get him arrested. Soon, social media was swamped with calls to arrest him. Even celebrities got involved, but it turned out Invisible Children was using the money they raised to take down Kony for themselves. This became a prime example of “slacktivism,” which is supporting a political cause with little meaningful activism. People stopped taking it seriously and instead started meming the cause. The nail in the coffin was when Invisible Children co-founder Jason Russell was arrested by police for public indecency. Meanwhile, Kony still hasn’t been detained.

#4: Shrek Is Love, Shrek Is Life

The “Shrek” films are iconic pieces of cinema, which are child-friendly and enjoyable for all ages. On the other hand, the “Shrek” fandom is predominantly adults, with some fairly edgy tastes. This began around 2009, but got increasingly intense in roughly 2013. This was largely motivated by a video titled “Shrek Is Love, Shrek Is Life.” It’s an SFM animation of a cursed post from 4chan’s random board. This catch phrase then became a huge meme, spreading across all corners of the internet. People who noticed it would’ve likely been curious about its origins, and then would’ve found the source is a gruesome and cursed animation.

#3: R.I.P. Harambe

If you ask anyone terminally online in 2016 what the year’s biggest meme is, the majority would instantly say Harambe. At the Cincinnati Zoo, a little boy accidentally fell into a gorilla enclosure, where he was grabbed by gorilla Harambe. To save the child, the zoo staff fatally shot Harambe. His death spurred a global conversation about animal rights and whether it was right or wrong to kill Harambe. After a few weeks, the majority of the internet began to take Harambe’s sad, and started to express how deeply they missed the gorilla. While many found them hilarious, the zoo’s director did not.

#2: Bush During 9/11

The 2001 September 11 attacks were one of the most horrifying terrorist attacks in human history. Two planes crashed directly into the Twin Towers, causing the deaths and injuries of thousands. The horrifying news was relayed to President George W. Bush while he was visiting a school. This moment got captured on video, and a still image became a huge meme later down the line. It remains a popular meme format today, over two decades after the attacks. This isn’t the sole 9/11 meme. The dreadful tragedy has become a favored meme of Generation Z.

#1: Ain’t Nobody Got Time For That

Oklahoma resident Kimberly “Sweet Brown” Wilkins became globally famous in 2012 after being interviewed on a local news station. Her iconic phrase “ain’t nobody got time for that” became huge online. It was parodied countless times, with the most popular memes being comical autotune remixes. While this phrase was undeniably comical, she had narrowly escaped from a burning building. Five apartments were affected, and someone was even hospitalised during the accident. On the bright side, she seemed to enjoy the fame it brought her. She returned for more news interviews and even cameoed in the Tyler Perry movie “A Madea Christmas.”

Were there any memes with particularly heartbreaking backstories we failed to bring up? Let us know in the comments below!