Where did the expression about Carl come from? What does Karl mean? What does "Karl" mean at the end of the phrase and from which movie is the meme
The Karl meme seems to have passed its peak of popularity, but continues to delight us on the Internet. Most of you have long noticed these comics about a boy with a big hat and his emotional father, but some still do not understand what it is about. Rain decided to figure out where this meme came from and when it was picked up in Russia.
The emotional meme originates from the post-apocalyptic series The Walking Dead on the American television channel AMC. The series is based on the comic book series of the same name about people trying to survive the zombie apocalypse.
The plot that created the meme is as follows: Rick Grimes (the main character of the series) realizes that his wife Lori died in childbirth, after which he begins to cry, scream and falls to the ground. His son Karl all this time just stands and is silent.
This meme became popular 2 years ago. After the release of the fourth episode "The Killer Inside" of the third season, an excerpt was recut a week later and posted on YouTube on March 13, 2013 under the name Rick Finds Out That Carl is Gay.
The meme, however, did not immediately become popular. It wasn't until December 2013 that Buzzfeed published "The 19 Best Dad Jokes From Rick Grimes." In it, the main message of the joke was set.
This meme reached Russia a couple of years later - so it began to be especially popular in early 2015, becoming one of the most popular jokes on the Russian Internet.
Later, on April 22, Alexei Navalny and Leonid Volkov began to use this meme not only on the Internet. At a briefing by the Anti-Corruption Foundation, the Democratic Coalition intends to participate in elections to legislative assemblies in the Novosibirsk, Kostroma and Kaluga regions through public primaries.
Then Navalny and Volkov were photographed next to the sign "Primaries, CARL" during the event.
If earlier we subtly quoted "catchwords", now we happily use all kinds of memes. In fact, the difference is small, just the "catchword" was usually given in its original form, as indicated in the original source, and the meme itself is a complex product of the collective unconscious. Where did the expression “Karl!” Come from, which can now be easily heard on the street or in communication with friends and relatives? Welcome to the fascinating world of The Walking Dead.
Who is Karl?
Despite the popularity of the comic book, which was based on a popular series, this meme could not appear only on the basis of drawings. Here, the charisma of Andrew Lincoln played the role, embodied on the screen the image of Rick Grimes, the protagonist of the story. Carl is his son, and in the fourth episode of the third season, this heartbreaking scene plays out.
Rick learns that his wife died in childbirth - surrounded by the living dead, Lori, Maggie and Carl did not have the opportunity to call for help at least someone. The only thing that could be done was to remove the baby by caesarean section, and Laurie did not survive. Where did the expression "Karl!" come from, if it was not in the film? In the scene being described, Rick realizes that he has lost his wife, and he simply leans over to the shockedly silent son, repeating: “Oh no, no, no,” cries, begins to roll on the ground.
After the release of the series, the Internet was flooded with separately cut pieces of video that were supposed to be used as memes with a tragic denial of anything. But this trend did not take root, although it became the ancestor of a popular phenomenon. Soon a video was released in which Rick allegedly finds out that his son is gay, and speaks very emotionally about this, exclaiming at the end: “Karl!” A start was made.
Origin of the meme
The English-speaking Internet was already seething, excelling in wit, but calm still reigned in Runet, despite attempts by fans of the series to adapt jokes to Russian by direct translation. It lacked some kind of powerful push.
The mechanisms of memetics are quite complex, and it is impossible to predict in advance which expression or picture will become a meme. Sometimes attempts are made to create artificial popularity, but this requires a lot of effort in the complete absence of the meaning of these actions. In RuNet, the impetus was a scandalous report from Stavropol - in March 2015, the Internet community learned about feeding the townspeople with pancakes for Maslenitsa, and the treat was served on shovels. Where did the expression "Karl!" in runet? The meme gained a powerful impetus to popularity precisely in the context of “we ate pancakes from a shovel, Carl!” - and the network was flooded with all sorts of options for captions under the storyboard from the series.
The cycle of popularity
At its peak, the meme lasted long enough, successful signatures still appear, which are reposted on social networks, becoming widespread, but the intensity is gradually fading. The peculiarities of all memes based on long-running series are the cyclical interest - a new season comes out, fans begin to give out creativity, discussions still rage for some time after the season, and the fandom falls into hibernation until the next season. After it became clear where the expression “Karl!” came from, you involuntarily want to ask yourself: “Why is it so widely used so far?”.
The meaning of the meme
If you try to translate the phrase into ordinary language, not “corrupted” by all kinds of creations of the Internet, it turns out that the essence of the expression is to expressively emphasize one’s own indignation or other strong emotions. The closest in meaning is the exclamation: “Just imagine!”. But often situations arise when each of us is a little Rick Grimes, and we want to emphasize the degree of our excited state.
Distribution and appropriateness of use
First of all, this is a slightly humorous, non-aggressive message that can be used to decorate the narrative in an original way, a story about some events. Involvement of emotional markers helps to make the verbal construction easier, perceived at a subconscious level. For example, when "Karl" appeared on various advertising posters, it served as a kind of viral marketing tool - photos of such creative signs instantly hit the Internet and were reposted throughout the network.
The transition of a meme from the Internet to everyday verbal communication is a fairly new phenomenon, but already familiar. What does "Karl" mean? at the end of a sentence? An expressive accent emphasizes a certain thought that is put at the beginning of the message, attracts attention.
Of course, this meme should not be used in business correspondence or official communication, however, as a joke, it is acceptable even in some public statements. Better than crude jargon, slang or veiled insults, the exclamation serves the same function - it conveys expression.
“Karl” in Russia began to end the phrase not so long ago, around the beginning of 2015, when an Internet meme about a boy in a wide-brimmed hat and his father began to gain popularity among the Russian audience.
What does "Karl" mean at the end of the phrase and from which movie is the meme
The exclamation "Karl!" first sounded in the post-apocalyptic series The Walking Dead, and on November 14, 2012, a user under the nickname MichiganSt35 uploaded a serial passage to YouToube in which the main character Rick Grimes falls into hysterics from the realization that his wife died during childbirth, and his son Carl, the same boy in a hat, whose image will later become a meme, silently stands nearby. This excerpt, to which the author, in his desire to “fuck”, chose a rather non-standard name - Rick Finds Out That Carl is Gay (“Rick finds out that Carl is gay”), did not attract the attention of a wide audience, however, in December of the same year, Buzzfeed, an American Internet news media company, published "19 best father jokes from Rick Grimes" (by the way, the so-called "father" jokes themselves are a Western meme, a kind of combination of Russian "button accordions" and flat monotonous humor), after which images of a sad boy in wide-brimmed hat and his father, who accompanies every lecture with a reproachful "Karl!", became one of the most popular Western Internet memes of the time.
Where did it come from in Russia and where could it be heard
In 2015, the meme about Karl reached Russia, and the most often used option was that the boy asks his father for the latest iPhone model, without which life “sucks”, to which he receives the expected answer that in the old days there were no iPhones , there were no telephones at all, but everything suited everyone. This expression received another surge in popularity in connection with the scandal in the same 2015, when the fact that the inhabitants of Stavropol were fed pancakes from shovels on Maslenitsa was widely publicized. The Internet meme had two implementation options - “Karl got drunk” and “Father is trying to explain something to his son.” Only the end of the phrase remained standard - an emotional repetition of the last words with the obligatory "Karl", with an interrogative or exclamatory intonation.
Curious fact. On April 22, 2015, the leaders of the Russian opposition A. Navalny and L. Volkov were photographed next to the sign "Primaries, CARL", making it clear that they, as representatives of the Democratic coalition, intend to participate in the elections to the legislative assemblies of the Novosibirsk, Kostroma and Kaluga regions through public primaries - preliminary internal party elections.
Over time, the origin of the meme began to be forgotten, and now the exclamation "Karl!" in a Russian-speaking environment it is used in situations where someone has to “chew” everything, or simply to refer to a narrow-minded person. It is often written in Internet battles on forums, the phrase is said by everyone and sundry, but not everyone understands where it came from, why it is so popular and what it means.
If you surf the Internet often enough, and on social networks you feel like a fish in water, you have probably heard and seen how “Karl!” is added to some expressions at the end.
However, if you don’t know why they say “Karl” at the end of a sentence, it means that you don’t sit on the Internet that much. But today you will be able to deal with this issue, and after reading our article, you will finally find out the origin and meaning of using this expression.
What it is
Today, an expression using "Karl!" has become an internet meme. It is quite difficult to look through the news feed on VK or Facebook and not find a single joke related to this meme. Often such jokes are accompanied by a video frame showing a crying man and a sad boy in a cowboy hat with his head down.
Origin of the meme
But where did this meme come from? Fans of foreign series and TV shows are probably aware of the existence of such a series as The Walking Dead. Even if they haven't watched it, they've probably heard the name because the show has quite high ratings and has been shown all over the world.
The son of the protagonist in this series was called Carl. As for the frame itself, which eventually became a meme, according to the plot of the series, at this moment the protagonist's wife died during childbirth, and the protagonist, realizing this, bent down near his son and cries. Of course, it’s not funny to call this scene a funny language, but after someone from the “minds” of the Internet thought of creating a meme from this frame, she got a second life.
Using a meme
As for the semantic load, the algorithm of jokes built using this freeze frame from the series, it is as follows:
- The boy (Carl) in the picture asks his father for anything, be it a new phone, new running shoes, money for a video game or entertainment.
- His father, through tears, answers him that in his childhood they had tin cans instead of phones, they sealed their sneakers with tape, and instead of X-Box and PlayStation, they played Wolf and Eggs, for example.
- To add emotional coloring to what was said, and to ironize their words even more, “Do you understand, Karl !?” is added to what was said.
When someone first created such a meme in 2013, the Internet community picked it up very quickly, and today, perhaps, millions of different jokes on this topic can be found on the Web.
And if you're wondering why they say "Karl!" at the end of the sentence, most likely, it is said with irony.
Charles- a meme-appeal and meme-comic, which was born thanks to the series "The Walking Dead".
Origin
Surely, many Internet users, and especially readers of various publics on social networks, have met the “Karl” meme at least once. Having originated on the Internet more than a year ago, it still does not lose its relevance and is still in the “top popularity” of memes.
The beginning of the Karl meme was laid by the TV series The Walking Dead. In episode 4 of season 3, the main character communicates with his son named Carl. The subject of the conversation was the wife of the protagonist, who was about to give birth to a child. As is usually the case in such scenes, the boy named Carl is silent, and Rick Grimes immediately understands that his wife died during childbirth. The hero begins to sob and wail "oh, no-no-no." And in the end falls to the ground from a great overabundance of feelings.
The first joke on this topic appeared almost immediately after the release of the series. The author did not distinguish himself with originality and simply re-uploaded the episode with the main character crying, calling the video "Rick finds out Carl is gay (The Walking Dead)", which means "Rick found out that Carl is gay" in Russian. The video has received over a million views. After that, the potential meme was forgotten for a while.
But in December 2013, the joke got a second wind when Buzzfeed published "the best jokes from Rick Grimes." It was at this moment that the outline of the meme was outlined.
Meaning
The meaning of the meme is that while the boy does not answer anything, the hero dramatically repeats a certain phrase, adding the name "Karl" to it. The most common variation of jokes on the theme of Rick's childhood, in which the meme-maker identifies him with himself. So the joke became a bit nostalgic.
As a result, after a while, the word "Karl" began to be used in isolation from the original meme, simply to emphasize or emotionally embellish an event. Just add "Carl" to the end of the sentence, and no emoticons are needed.
