Are You A Bad Enough Dude

1988catchphraseclassic

"Are You A Bad Enough Dude" is a catchphrase and image macro built from the 1988 NES game Bad Dudes, where a secret service agent asks the player if they can rescue a president kidnapped by ninjas. The line grew into a YTMND fad through the mid 2000s and later hopped to 4chan and Tumblr as a template for daring someone to do just about anything.

catchphrase memesytmnd memessnowclone memesgamingearly internet memes

Overview

"Are You A Bad Enough Dude" is a catchphrase and image macro pulled from the opening cutscene of Bad Dudes, a 1988 Nintendo Entertainment System port of Data East's arcade beat em up Dragon Ninja, in which a suited government agent steps up to the camera and asks the player if they are, in fact, a bad enough dude to rescue a kidnapped president from ninjas1. Meme edits keep the pixel agent onscreen and swap the president rescue text for whatever the poster wants to test someone against, from deleting religious figures2 to sharing pirated DVD rips4.

How It Spread

YTMND drove the fad through the mid 2000s. A wave of spinoffs stacked up on the site, including "Are you a bad enough dude to delete Jesus?"2, "Are you a bad enough dude to send an illegal DVD rip?"4, and "Are you a bad enough dude to take 400 MB?"5. Around 45 YTMND pages carried the phrase across the fad's roughly five year run, and the format moved onto 4chan in parallel, with Google indexing more than 2,370 archived mentions on 4chanarchive.org and some threads dating back to June 14, 20063.

On May 28, 2018, Tumblr user plasmalogical posted "Are you a bad enough dude to kiss me with tongue?," a version that pulled over 46,000 notes within three years and pushed the template far past its retro gamer roots6.

How to Use This Meme

Making a version typically means placing the pixel agent on a flat green background and rewriting the "rescue the president" line into whatever the poster wants to gauge, from a moderator action to a personal dare, following YTMND spinoffs like the delete Jesus2 and 400 MB5 pages.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are You A Bad Enough Dude

1988catchphraseclassic

"Are You A Bad Enough Dude" is a catchphrase and image macro built from the 1988 NES game Bad Dudes, where a secret service agent asks the player if they can rescue a president kidnapped by ninjas. The line grew into a YTMND fad through the mid 2000s and later hopped to 4chan and Tumblr as a template for daring someone to do just about anything.

catchphrase memes ytmnd memes snowclone memes gaming early internet memes

Overview

"Are You A Bad Enough Dude" is a catchphrase and image macro pulled from the opening cutscene of Bad Dudes, a 1988 Nintendo Entertainment System port of Data East's arcade beat em up Dragon Ninja, in which a suited government agent steps up to the camera and asks the player if they are, in fact, a bad enough dude to rescue a kidnapped president from ninjas1. Meme edits keep the pixel agent onscreen and swap the president rescue text for whatever the poster wants to test someone against, from deleting religious figures2 to sharing pirated DVD rips4.

How It Spread

YTMND drove the fad through the mid 2000s. A wave of spinoffs stacked up on the site, including "Are you a bad enough dude to delete Jesus?"2, "Are you a bad enough dude to send an illegal DVD rip?"4, and "Are you a bad enough dude to take 400 MB?"5. Around 45 YTMND pages carried the phrase across the fad's roughly five year run, and the format moved onto 4chan in parallel, with Google indexing more than 2,370 archived mentions on 4chanarchive.org and some threads dating back to June 14, 20063.

On May 28, 2018, Tumblr user plasmalogical posted "Are you a bad enough dude to kiss me with tongue?," a version that pulled over 46,000 notes within three years and pushed the template far past its retro gamer roots6.

How to Use This Meme

Making a version typically means placing the pixel agent on a flat green background and rewriting the "rescue the president" line into whatever the poster wants to gauge, from a moderator action to a personal dare, following YTMND spinoffs like the delete Jesus2 and 400 MB5 pages.

Frequently Asked Questions