00:00Sometimes, a meme graces your timeline, and you just can't quite understand it.
00:07Maybe you quickly head to Google, you frantically search, hitting the wrong keys in a frenzied
00:10stupor.
00:11Google's AI pops up, it gets a math problem wrong, and you're left wondering, what the
00:14heck was that meme?
00:15Well, take a look at this one and try to figure it out.
00:17There's a blue Grinch, a Grinch after too many blue raspberry slushies, and the very
00:20basic but eloquent impact font text that reads,
00:23That feeling, when knee surgery is tomorrow.
00:25What does it mean?
00:26Is there some sort of inside joke?
00:27Is it as simple as it seems?
00:28Is the only application for this meme for when I'm 40 and my knees stop working?
00:31I'm gonna have to save this one for decades from now for when my, you know, knees explode.
00:35Now, let's break it down.
00:36Luckily for us, Know Your Meme has an entry and an explainer article breaking it down,
00:39and I'm gonna get us across the blue Grinch river right now.
00:42As is expected, this avant-garde abstract but tasteful meme comes from the threads of
00:46a very small corner of the internet, a fringe internet trend gone rogue.
00:50What began as probably an inside joke between two 16-year-olds in the back of trigonometry
00:53class has blown up on TikTok this year, and this smirking blue-tinted Grinch has been
00:56popping up in all digital and ethereal locales.
00:59Well, it turns out this isn't the original iteration of the meme.
01:02Yes, this is actually the original, with the same text, but a different image.
01:05This time of a squirrel screaming to the gods above.
01:08This nutty meme found its way on memecreator.org on April of 2021, which sounds like a made-up
01:13sentence.
01:14I wouldn't think anyone was using memecreator.org within the past 10 years, but this one was
01:17worth it, because before long, it started morphing.
01:19The squirrel became a deceased rapper, murdered by Kendrick this summer.
01:23That was just four months later, in August of 2021.
01:25And then in 2022, the dweebs caught wind of this silly text, a post-post-ironic tinge
01:29of humor that makes no sense in almost any situation.
01:32They threw Azumanga Daioh in there.
01:34But none of these compared to the spark of beauty that blessed the Instagram feed of
01:38user Blinchfeels, the coveted, legendary, blue-tinted Grinch.
01:41But the real question is, who would win in a fight, blue-tinted Grinch or Jonkler Cart?
01:45I'm sure this is a very nail-biting debate on Blacktop in recess this winter.
01:49Regardless, this meme de Azul started getting reposted very quickly on subreddits like r
01:53slash oddlyspecific, and even its own dedicated subreddit, the intellectual realm of r slash
01:57knee surgery memes.
01:58Might as well call that r slash lobotomy, which probably also exists.
02:01And these reposts were getting tens of thousands of likes, like 85,000 in fact, on this one.
02:06Now the meme has evolved.
02:07People photoshopped the Jim Carrey Grinch in there.
02:09He should make a Blue Grinch adaptation, by the way.
02:11People print it out in real life, put it in bar graphs.
02:13What gives people feelings of power?
02:14The Blue Grinch has surged, through memers across the interwebs, blasting past its competition.
02:19This year, in 2024, it's seen all over through its comeback on TikTok, with videos like this
02:23one getting hundreds of thousands of likes, like it's nothing.
02:25As if the meme couldn't wrap another layer of irony around its already existing irony,
02:30people plaster it in rows and columns.
02:32I accidentally saved 10,000 photos of that feeling when knee surgery is tomorrow.
02:36There might as well be a virus of this thing, just instead of your computer bluescreening,
02:39it Blue Grinches.
02:40A horrifying fate.
02:41But what is Blue Grinch doing there, anyway?
02:44Why is he so happy to have knee surgery tomorrow?
02:47Wouldn't you be nervous?
02:48Maybe the Blue Grinch's smirk represents a state of consciousness beyond the petty, nervous Nancy.
02:52Beyond the neurotic lies a confident you, one that walks through traumatic events such
02:56as knee surgery like it's nothing.
02:58But what if we're all this unphased Blue Grinch?
03:01We're all the Blue Grinch going back to Whoville to steal every present in town.
03:04This meme makes you feel invincible, like you've somehow escaped the normal, mortal
03:08memes of old.
03:09You're a step above.
03:10You are blue.
03:11You are the Grinch.
03:12And knee surgery is tomorrow.
03:14But what is tomorrow, anyway?
03:1610 out of 10.
03:17The meme of all time.
03:18A masterpiece.
03:19Until the surgeon messes something up.
03:20Then you're Red Grinch.
03:21And knee surgery is now.
