Shrek's Cringe Compilation

About

Shrek's Cringe Compilation" refers to an image macro of the character Shrek taking a photograph captioned with variations of the phrase "*SNAP* Yep. This one's going in my cringe compilation." The reaction image achieved viral popularity in mid-2018 and has since spawned multiple remakes, redraws and recaptions.

Origin

Image Origin

The image of Shrek holding the camera is speculated to be a frame from a lost commercial for HP (shown below, left).^[8] Two other images from the speculated commercial and associated materials have been discovered, one showing Shrek holding checking a picture on the camera's screen (shown below, center), and the other, from an HP booklet,^[9] showing the same model from a different angle (shown below, right). Lost media researchers consider that the commercial may or may not exist, and the exact origin of the image remains unclear.^[10]

Meme Origin

On January 6th, 2018, iFunny^[7] user Gxbe posted the image, captioning it, "*SNAP* / Yep. This one's going in my cringe compilation" in response to to a NSFW cartoon (portion shown below). The post gained over 1,500 smiles in four years.

Spread

On January 7th, 2018, Twitter user @cooltop^[1] posted an image macro of Shrek taking a photograph with the caption "*SNAP* / Yep. This one's going in my cringe compilation," describing it as an image that can "absolutely obliterate anyone" (shown below). Within five months, the tweet gained over 730 likes and 350 retweets.

On January 8th, 2018, YouTuber ham channel uploaded a video featuring the image macro (shown below).

On January 10th, Redditor Brassow submitted the image macro to /r/MemeEconomy.^[6]

On May 19th, an anonymous 4chan user submitted a post to the /int/ board about attempting to explain the "shrek with a camera meme" to their mother (shown below).^[4]

On May 21st, Redditor zeusdefier posted the image macro to the /r/milliondollarextreme^[5] subreddit in a post titled "Just found this NAZI sub."

Bill Mitchell Tweets

On May 31st, conservative political commentator Bill Mitchell tweeted a screenshot of tweets replying to him featuring the Shrek image with the caption "Yep. This one's going in my Boomer compilation," claiming they were posted by "#Sorosbots" (shown below).^[2]

On June 1st, Mitchell tweeted a picture of Shrek wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat captioned with "Snap / This one is going in my MAGA collection" (shown below).

On June 3rd, Mitchell criticized Twitter for doing "nothing" about those tweeting Shrek image macros in reply to his tweets, accusing them of being "automated and bot tweeting by leftwing trolls" (shown below).^[3] The tweet was subsequently deleted.

Lost Media Search

On June 20th, 2018, Lost Media Wiki^[8] user Jocobo created a thread for searching the hypothesized lost HP commercial the image originates from (screenshot shown below, left). In 2022, the search for the commercial was reignited by a viral tweet^[9] posted by @KennyLauderdal3 on February 12th which gained over 4,00 retweets and 32,000 likes in three days. In the following days, search for the image went on in the Lost Commercials Foundation Discord^[11] server, with users discovering an additional image originating from a promotional booklet by HP (shown below, center and right).

The camera that Shrek is holding in the images was modeled by late 3D artist Steve McGraph^[12] (image of the camera shown below, left). On February 15th, 2022, Lost Commercial Foundation concluded^[13] that the image may or may not originate from a lost commercial (tweet shown below, right).

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Search Interest

External References