BBC Homepage
  • Skip to content
  • Accessibility Help
  • Your account
  • Notifications
  • Home
  • News
  • Sport
  • Weather
  • iPlayer
  • Sounds
  • Bitesize
  • CBBC
  • CBeebies
  • Food
  • More menu
More menu
Search BBC
  • Home
  • News
  • Sport
  • Weather
  • iPlayer
  • Sounds
  • Bitesize
  • CBBC
  • CBeebies
  • Food
Close menu
BBC News
Menu
  • Home
  • InDepth
  • Israel-Gaza war
  • War in Ukraine
  • Climate
  • UK
  • World
  • Business
  • Politics
  • Culture
More
  • Tech
  • Science
  • Health
  • Family & Education
  • In Pictures
  • Newsbeat
  • BBC Verify
  • Disability
  • BBC Trending

Exploring the life of a meme with American Chopper

  • Published
    17 April 2018
Share page
About sharing
Paul Teutul Jr (left) and Paul TeutulImage source, Getty Images
Image caption,

The meme stars Paul Teutul Jr (left) and Paul Teutul in a heated argument

Tom Gerken
BBC UGC & Social News

You may have seen a meme featuring two men furiously arguing and wondered what on earth it was all about.

The five-panel series of images known as the American Chopper meme uses stills taken from the reality television show of the same name to show a father and son having a melodramatic argument.

The programme began in 2003 and ended in 2010, yet online interest in it surged in March and April 2018.

The images have been liked, shared, retweeted and upvoted hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of times across multiple social media sites, and used to explain everything from US constitutional law to protection of the oceans.

So, how did a simple series of images and text, originally posted to Reddit in 2011, become one of the most popular memes on Twitter in 2018?

You may also like:

  • Expectations vs. Reality: Is this 1921 cartoon the first ever meme?

  • How do you pronounce meme?

  • Why some people can hear this silent gif

This X post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser.View original content on X
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
Skip X post by Khaleel

Allow X content?

This article contains content provided by X. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read X’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
End of X post by Khaleel

What is a meme?

  • The word meme was coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene

  • Dawkins called memes "ideas that spread from brain to brain"

  • The Oxford English Dictionary, external defines memes as images, videos or text that are copied and spread by internet users, often with variations

Beginnings

The image seems to have first appeared, external in the popular Reddit community r/Funny in November 2011, where the captions subverted the anger of the two men by suggesting one was simply moving a chair for the other.

It was subsequently reposted many times over the next few years with some slight variations. So, according to the definition above - when different jokes with the same series of pictures began - it then became a meme.

This X post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser.View original content on X
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
Skip X post 2 by Katelyn Burns

Allow X content?

This article contains content provided by X. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read X’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
End of X post 2 by Katelyn Burns

Resurgence on Reddit

In March 2018, the image reappeared in various Reddit communities with new captions.

It coincided with a new series of American Chopper airing on the Discovery Channel in the US.

With people once again interested in the television show, the Reddit posts began to reappear on Twitter, inspiring further variations of the meme.

Its popularity saw the meme covered by various news outlets online, such as Vox, Mashable and Vice.

However, this may have led to the meme's demise within the r/MemeEconomy community on Reddit, where memes are tongue-in-cheek bought and sold as if they are shares on a stock exchange.

There, a meme's value is seemingly tied into its potential for millions of people to understand and use its format. Ironically, the value of a meme also depends on it not yet gaining mainstream acceptance.

On 29 March 2018, a post on r/MemeEconomy - titled 'Sell Sell Sell' - featured a tweet from digital media company Vice celebrating the Chopper meme.

The post was upvoted 28,000 times along with comments saying the joke "had a good run," and "when it becomes Vice's favourite meme it becomes everyone else's least favourite".

This X post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser.View original content on X
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
Skip X post 3 by VICE

Allow X content?

This article contains content provided by X. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read X’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
End of X post 3 by VICE

Growth on Twitter

In the first week of April 2018, the meme took on a second life on Twitter, focusing the humour around the two men arguing about a random topic.

Particularly, people exploited the panel structure to explain complex arguments in a concise form.

Erica Goldberg, an assistant professor at the University of Dayton Law, created a version of the meme, external which explains arguments surrounding the US First Amendment.

Matthew Yglesias, a journalist for Vox Media, used the meme, external "to illustrate the pedagogical power of socratic dialogue," and Monterey Bay Aquarium in California posted their variant, external to express arguments around ocean awareness.

This X post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser.View original content on X
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
Skip X post 4 by Monterey Bay Aquarium

Allow X content?

This article contains content provided by X. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read X’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
End of X post 4 by Monterey Bay Aquarium

Oddities and decline

Bizarre uses of the meme emerged as the subject of the joke changed with every tweet.

One version saw the meme drawn in the style of the music video, external to Aha's 1980s hit Take On Me, while Twitter user jimoutofbennies turned it into a joke, external about the shape of the meme itself.

These variations began to reappear on Reddit, with a repost of jimoutofbennies' six-panel version becoming the most upvoted post to date on the r/memes subreddit.

Following this spike, the meme's use has declined dramatically, and its final hurrah seems to have come courtesy of one person on Twitter, who used five tweets from Donald Trump to contrast the US president's previously-held beliefs about Syria with his current actions in the region.

This X post cannot be displayed in your browser. Please enable Javascript or try a different browser.View original content on X
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
Skip X post 5 by heartbeeps

Allow X content?

This article contains content provided by X. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. You may want to read X’s cookie policy, external and privacy policy, external before accepting. To view this content choose ‘accept and continue’.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.
End of X post 5 by heartbeeps

More on this story

  • Is this 1921 cartoon the first ever meme?

    • Published
      16 April 2018
    On the left of the cartoon, a well-dressed attractive gentleman is captioned with "How you think you look when a flashlight is taken". On the right, an unattractive gentleman is captioned with "How you really look".
  • How do you pronounce 'meme'?

    • Published
      7 September 2017
    Gemma Collins
  • Obama sends Biden a meme for his birthday

    • Published
      21 November 2017
    Obama and Biden in White House

Around the BBC

  • BBC Radio 1 - Newsbeat Documentaries, The Joy of Memes

Top stories

  • Woman says Zou raped her hours before other attack

    • Published
      6 hours ago
  • FBI investigates Minneapolis school shooting as anti-Catholic hate crime

    • Published
      3 hours ago
  • MoD staff warned not to share hidden data before Afghan leak

    • Published
      6 hours ago

More to explore

  • A pregnant woman's diary of escape from war zone: 'I prayed the baby wouldn't come'

    A Sudanese flag flying on a vehicle (not seen) mounted by a gun manned by RSF soldiers.
  • 'Shooting terror' and 'one third of Gaza wounded are children'

    The front pages of the Guardian and the Times
  • How can working parents get 30 hours of free childcare?

    A smiling baby on a red and white background - reflecting the BBC's "cost of living" branding
  • Value of small parcels sent from China to UK hits £3bn

    A delivery man in a green t-shirt hands a brown cardboard box to a woman with brown hair, wearing a stripy  top. The delivery man is holding a phone up for the woman to sign for the package.
  • Jacqueline Wilson on the 'easiest and hardest book I've ever written'

    Jacqueline Wilson
  • Scottish island castle goes back on sale for £750,000

    An aerial view of the red sandstone lodge with its ornate turrets and battlement-like rooftops. The lodge is set in an grounds with large areas of grass and trees. In the background is the sea, with a few boats dotted around a bay, and mountains in the distance.
  • A charity is giving people money to stop homelessness - and it says it's working

    A woman in a leopard print top holds a young boy in glasses and a blue top
  • MoD staff warned not to share hidden data before Afghan leak

    Members of the UK Armed Forces leading Afghan refugees past a row of RAF transport planes at Kabul airport. The refugees' faces have been blurred
  • Woman says Zou raped her hours before other attack

    Treated image of Zhenhao Zou featuring his police mugshot. He is looking straight at the camera with a serious expression. He has straight dark hair with a long fringe and is wearing a white t-shirt and black shirt.
loading elsewhere stories

Most read

  1. 1

    Woman says Zou raped her hours before other attack

  2. 2

    'Shooting terror' and 'one third of Gaza wounded are children'

  3. 3

    North Korea's Kim Jong Un to join Putin at China military parade

  4. 4

    Jacqueline Wilson on the 'easiest and hardest book I've ever written'

  5. 5

    Value of small parcels sent from China to UK hits £3bn

  6. 6

    FBI investigates Minneapolis school shooting as anti-Catholic hate crime

  7. 7

    Ed Davey to boycott Trump state banquet over Gaza

  8. 8

    Taylor Swift's engagement ring, and the celebrity trend for big rocks

  9. 9

    Apple warns UK against introducing tougher tech regulation

  10. 10

    MoD staff warned not to share hidden data before Afghan leak

BBC News Services

  • On your mobile
  • On smart speakers
  • Get news alerts
  • Contact BBC News

Best of the BBC

  • The world’s deadliest offshore disaster revisited

    • Attribution
      iPlayer
    Disaster at Sea: The Piper Alpha Story
  • America's richest woman was also the biggest miser

    • Attribution
      Sounds
    Good, Bad, Billionaire: Hetty Green
  • A sweeping historical drama with James Norton

    • Attribution
      iPlayer
    King and Conqueror
  • Ian Wright remembers his inspirational teacher

    • Attribution
      Sounds
    Desert Island Discs Postcards
  • Home
  • News
  • Sport
  • Weather
  • iPlayer
  • Sounds
  • Bitesize
  • CBBC
  • CBeebies
  • Food
  • Terms of Use
  • About the BBC
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookies
  • Accessibility Help
  • Parental Guidance
  • Contact the BBC
  • Make an editorial complaint
  • BBC emails for you

Copyright © 2025 BBC. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.