What is Brother May I Have Some Oats?

It's a copypasta caption attached to an 1850 painting of two pigs, popularized on 4chan as oatposting.

Where did Brother May I Have Some Oats come from?

Twitter user @markyannna posted the pig painting with the caption on October 10th, 2016, and it spread from there.

What does Brother May I Have Some Oats mean?

The joke reframes the two pigs in A Pair of Pigs as brothers politely asking each other for breakfast, playing on the mismatch between the antique painting and the formal request.

How do you use Brother May I Have Some Oats?

People pair the pig painting with a short polite request in mock-Victorian English, often addressed to "brother" and asking for oats.

Is Brother May I Have Some Oats still popular?

It's a classic 4chan copypasta from late 2016 and early 2017, best known for its run on /s4s/ and /r9k/ during that period.

Brother May I Have Some Oats

2016copypastaclassic

Published August 16, 2026

Brother May I Have Some Oats is a copypasta caption paired with an 1850 oil painting of two pigs, originating from a 2016 Twitter post and spreading through 4chan's /s4s/ and /r9k/ boards. The bit turned a Victorian farm painting into a template for polite, formal requests between imagined pig brothers.

copypasta memes 4chan memes classical art parody memes animal memes 2016 memes

Overview

Brother May I Have Some Oats is a copypasta built around an 1850 oil painting called A Pair of Pigs, showing two hefty pigs standing side by side in a pen2. The joke pairs the antique farm scene with an exaggeratedly polite request, imagining the pigs as Victorian brothers asking each other for breakfast1.

On 4chan, the format became known as oatposting, with users on /s4s/ and /r9k/ swapping variants like "Brother dear, would you please pas the oats?" and "May I have some oats, brother"3. The humor sits in the mismatch between the stately painting, the formal English, and the fact that the speakers are two pigs.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

Twitter (source) / 4chan (viral spread)

Creator

@markyannna

Date

2016

The meme started on October 10th, 2016, when Twitter user @markyannna 4 posted the pig painting with the caption "brother may I have some oats"3. Over the next three months, the tweet pulled in roughly 18,000 likes and 12,400 retweets3.

The painting itself is a real work titled A Pair of Pigs, an oil on canvas from 1850 by an unknown artist, held in the collection of the Compton Verney art gallery in Warwickshire, England2.

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How It Spread

On October 30th, 2016, Tumblr user nanalie 3 reposted a screenshot of the original tweet, and it picked up more than 68,000 notes within two months3. The image jumped to 4chan on December 31st, 2016, when an anonymous poster on the /s4s/ board shared it with the caption "Brother dear, would you please pas the oats?" 2.

On January 2nd, 2017, an /r9k/ 5 user started a thread using the caption "May I have some oats, brother," which drew over 300 replies before being archived3. Two days later, on January 4th, 2017, YouTuber Joe Capo uploaded a video titled "Brother May Have Any Oats" 1, and a repost by the Difficulty II Facebook page reached over 191,000 views, 3,700 reactions, and 2,600 shares in under 24 hours3.

On January 5th, 2017, Redditor quitethepersona 6 submitted a screenshot of one of the 4chan threads to r/4chan, helping the format cross into Reddit's meme circles3.

How to Use This Meme

The template typically pairs the A Pair of Pigs painting with a short, overly polite request written in mock-Victorian English. Common conventions include addressing the other pig as "brother" or "brother dear," and asking for oats, though users often swap in other requests or reframe the pigs as characters in longer copypasta exchanges3.