What is Can We Fix It?

Can We Fix It is a three-panel exploitable meme featuring Bob the Builder that inverts his cheerful catchphrase by pairing it with situations that clearly cannot be fixed[3].

Where did Can We Fix It come from?

Redditor PGHWhiteKnight posted the first widely shared version on July 19th, 2017 in /r/dankchristianmemes, using a church congregation image in the middle panel[1].

What does Can We Fix It mean?

The format uses Bob the Builder's optimistic 'Can we fix it? Yes we can' theme song to mock problems too big, absurd, or entrenched for any easy solution[3].

How do you use Can We Fix It?

Users typically stack three panels: Bob asking the question up top, a hopeless situation captioned in the middle, and a defeated Bob rubbing his brow at the bottom[1].

Is Can We Fix It still popular?

The template settled in as a classic Reddit reaction format after spreading through /r/DankMemes, /r/HistoryMemes, /r/gamindustri and /r/MemeEconomy in mid-2017[2][5].

Can We Fix It

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Can We Fix It is a three-panel exploitable image macro featuring Bob the Builder that took off on Reddit in July 2017. The top panel poses his catchphrase, the middle presents an impossible situation, and the bottom shows a defeated Bob, flipping the show's optimistic theme song on its head.

exploitable templates childrens media memes multi panel memes catchphrase memes 2017 memes

Overview

Can We Fix It is a three-panel exploitable built around Bob the Builder, the stop-motion construction worker from the long-running British children's series3. The top panel pairs Bob's face with his signature question, the middle panel drops in some situation captioned as a hopeless fix, and the bottom panel shows Bob pinching his brow, silently admitting he cannot pull this one off1.

The whole joke rides on the show's theme song, which answers the title question with a cheerful 'Bob the Builder, yes we can'3. Can We Fix It memes flip that optimism, using the format for problems where the honest answer is clearly no. The template is bare-bones enough to swap the middle panel for anything from religion to politics to gaming disasters2.

How It Spread

Within days, Can We Fix It jumped subreddits. Versions surfaced on /r/gamindustri, /r/DankMemes, and /r/HistoryMemes as users plugged their own hopeless scenarios into the middle panel, from gaming fails to historical disasters2 4.

/r/MemeEconomy, the community that treats meme trends like tradable stocks, ran at least four separate threads flagging the Bob the Builder format as a rising investment worth buying into5. That level of MemeEconomy chatter was a reliable 2017 marker for a template hitting critical mass across Reddit5.

The format settled into the standard rotation of Reddit reaction images and still pops up whenever someone needs to caption a situation as unambiguously beyond repair2.

How to Use This Meme

The template typically stacks three panels vertically. The top panel keeps Bob's face and the 'Can we fix it?' text. The middle panel drops in the hopeless situation with a short descriptive caption. The bottom panel shows Bob rubbing his forehead or looking defeated. The joke lands hardest when the fix is obviously outside his skill set, like a societal, historical, or political problem no children's-show handyman could touch.

Frequently Asked Questions

References (5)