Boardroom Suggestion

2012image macroclassic

Boardroom Suggestion is an exploitable four-panel comic where a boss asks his team for ideas, likes two safe answers, then throws the third employee out the window for suggesting what customers actually want. It started as a Hejibits Nintendo Wii U strip in December 2012 and became one of the most edited corporate-satire templates of the early 2010s.

exploitable templateswebcomic memesmulti panel memeswork memesconsumer culture memes

Overview

Boardroom Suggestion is an exploitable four-panel comic that satirizes how corporate executives misread their own customers. Each strip opens with a boss asking three employees for new product ideas, hears two on-brand answers he likes, then throws the third employee out the window for suggesting something people would actually want3.

The comic pairs stiff webcomic art with a repeating staging: three seated employees, a boss at the head of the table, and one very load-bearing window. Fans redraw the panels for different corporate targets and different rejected ideas, but the last-panel window toss always stays. The format sits alongside other business-boardroom exploitables like Corporate Logic and All Right, Gentlemen3.

How It Spread

Engadget's Joystiq Weekly Webcomic Wrapup picked up "Outlook Oust" on December 29th, 2012, listing it alongside strips from Penny Arcade and Corpse Run in that week's roundup and giving the comic its first push outside Hejibits' regular audience1. Within days, 4chan's /b/ board opened a January 3rd, 2013 draw thread that stacked over three hundred replies and roughly a hundred variant comics. Screenshots hit Reddit's /r/4chan on January 5th, an MTV-themed edit posted to /r/funny the same day pulled over 7,500 upvotes and 195 comments in nine days, Cheezburger's Memebase highlighted a snack-food edit on January 11th, and a dedicated "Boardroom Suggestion Memes" Facebook page passed 4,400 likes within a day of launching on January 14th3.

The template also jumped languages. Spanish humor site Cuanto Cabron ran a Cartoon Network programming variant, with commenters arguing about which older cartoons the network should be reviving instead of its current lineup (translated from Spanish)2. The extended version drawn by Cheezburger user Whiteoverblue in February 2013, in which the boss actually adopts the last employee's idea instead of throwing him out, got a second wind in June 2019 when redditor AidanOrsargos revived it on /r/dankmemes and posted a reversed edit to /r/memes the following day, both pulling tens of thousands of upvotes.

How to Use This Meme

The typical edit swaps in a company or industry for the boss, keeps the three-employee seating and the open window, and rewrites the final panel with the 'unspeakable' consumer request that gets the character defenestrated. Common convention keeps the first two suggestions as bland corporate-safe ideas so the third one lands hard. Extended edits sometimes reverse the beat and have the boss actually take the last employee's advice.

Frequently Asked Questions

Boardroom Suggestion

2012image macroclassic

Boardroom Suggestion is an exploitable four-panel comic where a boss asks his team for ideas, likes two safe answers, then throws the third employee out the window for suggesting what customers actually want. It started as a Hejibits Nintendo Wii U strip in December 2012 and became one of the most edited corporate-satire templates of the early 2010s.

exploitable templates webcomic memes multi panel memes work memes consumer culture memes

Overview

Boardroom Suggestion is an exploitable four-panel comic that satirizes how corporate executives misread their own customers. Each strip opens with a boss asking three employees for new product ideas, hears two on-brand answers he likes, then throws the third employee out the window for suggesting something people would actually want3.

The comic pairs stiff webcomic art with a repeating staging: three seated employees, a boss at the head of the table, and one very load-bearing window. Fans redraw the panels for different corporate targets and different rejected ideas, but the last-panel window toss always stays. The format sits alongside other business-boardroom exploitables like Corporate Logic and All Right, Gentlemen3.

How It Spread

Engadget's Joystiq Weekly Webcomic Wrapup picked up "Outlook Oust" on December 29th, 2012, listing it alongside strips from Penny Arcade and Corpse Run in that week's roundup and giving the comic its first push outside Hejibits' regular audience1. Within days, 4chan's /b/ board opened a January 3rd, 2013 draw thread that stacked over three hundred replies and roughly a hundred variant comics. Screenshots hit Reddit's /r/4chan on January 5th, an MTV-themed edit posted to /r/funny the same day pulled over 7,500 upvotes and 195 comments in nine days, Cheezburger's Memebase highlighted a snack-food edit on January 11th, and a dedicated "Boardroom Suggestion Memes" Facebook page passed 4,400 likes within a day of launching on January 14th3.

The template also jumped languages. Spanish humor site Cuanto Cabron ran a Cartoon Network programming variant, with commenters arguing about which older cartoons the network should be reviving instead of its current lineup (translated from Spanish)2. The extended version drawn by Cheezburger user Whiteoverblue in February 2013, in which the boss actually adopts the last employee's idea instead of throwing him out, got a second wind in June 2019 when redditor AidanOrsargos revived it on /r/dankmemes and posted a reversed edit to /r/memes the following day, both pulling tens of thousands of upvotes.

How to Use This Meme

The typical edit swaps in a company or industry for the boss, keeps the three-employee seating and the open window, and rewrites the final panel with the 'unspeakable' consumer request that gets the character defenestrated. Common convention keeps the first two suggestions as bland corporate-safe ideas so the third one lands hard. Extended edits sometimes reverse the beat and have the boss actually take the last employee's advice.

Frequently Asked Questions