A Large Boulder The Size Of A Small Boulder

2020catchphraseclassic

A Large Boulder The Size Of A Small Boulder is a Twitter catchphrase from a January 2020 roadblock warning by Colorado's San Miguel Sheriff account. The tautological description of a boulder was mocked and remixed heavily within 24 hours, turning a routine traffic alert into one of the most quoted lines of that week.

catchphrase memesaccidental fame memestwitter memesabsurdist humor memes2020 memes

Overview

A Large Boulder The Size Of A Small Boulder is a phrasal gaffe from a January 2020 tweet by the San Miguel Sheriff's Office in Colorado, warning drivers about a rock blocking Highway 1451. The line reads as an unintentional tautology, comparing the boulder's size to another boulder rather than any useful reference object, and Twitter latched onto it almost immediately3.

The joke is entirely in the wording. The original photo shows a genuinely large rock sitting in a snowy road, so users spun the caption into shape jokes, identity gags, and captioned reaction posts within hours of the alert going out23.

How It Spread

Later that same day, @GPollowitz quote-tweeted the original with "this small boulder identifies as a large boulder," pulling in more than 1,800 likes and 250 retweets in a day4. Around the same time, @austin_mcbrown posted a mock stock chart labeled "science" with the caption "Man that there boulder is so large it looks kinda small," which picked up around 6,900 likes2.

On January 28th, 2020, @devon__palmer tweeted "Everybody gangster until the large boulder the size of a small boulder shows up," fitting the line into the popular "everybody gangster until" template and gaining about 4,700 likes and 880 retweets in a day5. The catchphrase kept circulating as a shorthand for tautological or self-referential descriptions and is still pulled out whenever an official account posts an unintentionally funny alert3.

How to Use This Meme

The catchphrase is typically deployed as a reply or quote-tweet whenever someone describes an object by comparing it to itself, or as a caption on any photo of an oddly obvious hazard. A common convention is to swap "boulder" for the actual object while keeping the "[X] the size of a small [X]" structure intact for the joke to land.

Frequently Asked Questions

A Large Boulder The Size Of A Small Boulder

2020catchphraseclassic

A Large Boulder The Size Of A Small Boulder is a Twitter catchphrase from a January 2020 roadblock warning by Colorado's San Miguel Sheriff account. The tautological description of a boulder was mocked and remixed heavily within 24 hours, turning a routine traffic alert into one of the most quoted lines of that week.

catchphrase memes accidental fame memes twitter memes absurdist humor memes 2020 memes

Overview

A Large Boulder The Size Of A Small Boulder is a phrasal gaffe from a January 2020 tweet by the San Miguel Sheriff's Office in Colorado, warning drivers about a rock blocking Highway 1451. The line reads as an unintentional tautology, comparing the boulder's size to another boulder rather than any useful reference object, and Twitter latched onto it almost immediately3.

The joke is entirely in the wording. The original photo shows a genuinely large rock sitting in a snowy road, so users spun the caption into shape jokes, identity gags, and captioned reaction posts within hours of the alert going out23.

How It Spread

Later that same day, @GPollowitz quote-tweeted the original with "this small boulder identifies as a large boulder," pulling in more than 1,800 likes and 250 retweets in a day4. Around the same time, @austin_mcbrown posted a mock stock chart labeled "science" with the caption "Man that there boulder is so large it looks kinda small," which picked up around 6,900 likes2.

On January 28th, 2020, @devon__palmer tweeted "Everybody gangster until the large boulder the size of a small boulder shows up," fitting the line into the popular "everybody gangster until" template and gaining about 4,700 likes and 880 retweets in a day5. The catchphrase kept circulating as a shorthand for tautological or self-referential descriptions and is still pulled out whenever an official account posts an unintentionally funny alert3.

How to Use This Meme

The catchphrase is typically deployed as a reply or quote-tweet whenever someone describes an object by comparing it to itself, or as a caption on any photo of an oddly obvious hazard. A common convention is to swap "boulder" for the actual object while keeping the "[X] the size of a small [X]" structure intact for the joke to land.

Frequently Asked Questions