What is Almost Politically Correct Redneck?

An Advice Animals image macro of a shirtless mulleted man next to a pickup truck, captioned in two lines where he sounds tolerant on top and reveals a stereotypical prejudice on the bottom.

Where did Almost Politically Correct Redneck come from?

The photo is of Zach Downey, taken by his wife Tricia in 2003 the morning after Halloween in front of a friend's 1979 GMC pickup, and it first went viral as an Advice Animals macro on Reddit in May 2012.

What does Almost Politically Correct Redneck mean?

The joke is that the character tries to sound accepting and can't quite pull it off, so his earnest setup makes the bigoted punchline sting harder.

How do you use Almost Politically Correct Redneck?

Write a top line that sounds tolerant ("I fully support," "Not against") then close with a qualifier that reveals a stereotypical redneck bias on the same topic.

Is Almost Politically Correct Redneck still popular?

It peaked in 2012, made Buzzfeed's Best New Memes of 2012 at #17, and faded through the mid-2010s alongside the rest of the Advice Animals format.

Almost Politically Correct Redneck

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Published August 15, 2026

Almost Politically Correct Redneck is an Advice Animals image macro featuring a shirtless mulleted man beside a 1979 GMC pickup, captioned so he sounds tolerant in the first line before revealing a stereotypical redneck prejudice in the second. It broke out on Reddit in May 2012 and made Buzzfeed's Best New Memes of 2012 list that November.

advice animals stereotype memes image macro memes bait and switch memes early 2010s memes

Overview

Almost Politically Correct Redneck is an Advice Animals macro built around a photo of a shirtless young man with a fresh mullet standing next to a pickup truck3. Captions run in two lines: the top sounds progressive or accepting, and the bottom snaps back with a bigoted qualifier that turns the whole thing into a joke on the character's earnest but limited worldview1.

The humor depends on the delivery. The mullet, the bare chest, and the truck read as instantly Southern stereotype, which is what lets the setup fake sincerity before the punchline lands3. Compared with the wider Advice Animals family that ran Reddit in the early 2010s, this one is defined by the word "almost" doing all the work: the character tries, and the punchline is that he can't quite get there5.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

Fark (early reaction use) / Reddit r/AdviceAnimals (viral spread)

Creator

Zach Downey; Redditor IanL27

Date

2012

The subject of the photo is Zach Downey, a photographer who worked at the Lilly Library at Indiana University3. He cut his hair into a mullet as a Halloween costume joke in 2003, and the morning after, his wife Tricia posed him in front of their friend Jen Owen's 1979 GMC pickup and shot the sequence that eventually became the template. Downey wore the haircut for about sixteen hours before shaving it off3.

A friend uploaded the shot to a mullet photo gallery site, where it was labeled "Mullet of the Month" and started drifting around the web3. Fark picked it up as a reaction image on July 3, 2005, when user sens dropped it into a thread mocking a story about Toyota siting a plant in Canada instead of training American workers, and the same crop kept showing up on Fark in at least two more threads through 20094.

How It Spread

The Advice Animals treatment started on May 12, 2012, when Redditor IanL27 posted "I present to you: Somewhat Politically Correct Redneck" to r/AdviceAnimals with the caption "Not against gay marriage / unless the couple is colored," pulling in more than 3,700 upvotes over the next three days2. The next day, Redditor larkable posted a harsher version captioned "What's wrong / with faggots, queer?" that climbed to nearly 17,000 upvotes and around 600 comments2.

By May 14, the format had a name. Men's humor blog Guyism, later folded into BroBible, ran a piece called "New Meme You Should Know: Almost Politically Correct Redneck" and tied the surge to North Carolina's gay marriage ban that same week5. A Facebook page went up the same day, a BodyBuilding Forums thread pulled 23 replies in a day, and a FunnyJunk instance appeared with the caption "I fully support the right of my daughter to express her love for her girlfriend in public / it's pretty hot"3.

Buzzfeed ranked the image macro #17 on its Best New Memes of 2012 list that November1. By December, the Quickmeme page held more than 5,000 submissions and Meme Generator hosted about a thousand more, with roughly 760 submissions on Reddit alone3. Roundups on Uproxx and BroBible kept surfacing new captions through the year, though usage dropped off as the wider Advice Animals wave faded through the mid-2010s5.

How to Use This Meme

The template typically uses two lines with a hard turn between them. The top line opens with something that reads as tolerant: "I don't care if you're gay," "I fully support," "Not against." The bottom line then attaches a qualifier that outs the character's stereotypical redneck bias. The comedic beat lives in the timing, so captions land best when the setup sounds genuinely warm before the second line pulls the rug. Common subjects include marriage, race, gender, and religion, but the format works with any topic where a bigoted qualifier can sneak in through the back door1.