Cereal Guy

2007Reaction image / stick figure comicclassic

Also known as: Cereal Dude · Cereal Spitting Guy

Cereal Guy is a 2007 stick figure meme created by Bob Averill for Something Awful, depicting a casual character eating cereal and used to convey indifference or detached observation of unfolding drama.

Cereal Guy is a stick figure character depicted casually eating cereal, originally drawn by graphic designer Bob Averill for Something Awful's forums in 20072. The character became a staple reaction face on imageboards and forums, typically used to convey indifference, nonchalant observation, or the act of watching drama unfold without getting involved2.

reaction memesexploitable templatessomething awful memesstick figure memeslate 2000s memes

Overview

Cereal Guy is a simply drawn stick figure sitting at a table eating a bowl of cereal. The character's defining trait is his unbothered demeanor. In most uses, he's either calmly spooning cereal into his mouth while chaos happens around him, or doing a dramatic spit-take when confronted with something shocking. The clean, minimal art style made him easy to redraw and drop into comic strips, which helped him spread rapidly across early meme communities1.

The character exists in two primary modes: the calm version (eating cereal while ignoring something) and the spit-take version (spitting cereal in shock). Both versions became widely used reaction faces in forum posts and imageboard threads throughout the late 2000s and early 2010s1.

Graphic designer Bob Averill, posting under the handle Lego_Robot, created the original Cereal Guy comic on the Something Awful forums sometime in 20071. The comic depicted a long-distance couple arguing over the phone and was a direct parody of television commercials for Reese's Puffs cereal. Those ads used the tagline "Candy?!... For breakfast? It's Reese's!"1.

The comic struck a nerve with Something Awful's community. Its popularity encouraged Averill to launch his own webcomic series called Lego Robot Comics, which later rebranded as Plastic Brick Automaton1.

Origin & Background

Platform
Something Awful (original comic), imageboards (viral spread)
Key People
Bob Averill, a.k.a. Lego_Robot
Date
2007

Graphic designer Bob Averill, posting under the handle Lego_Robot, created the original Cereal Guy comic on the Something Awful forums sometime in 2007. The comic depicted a long-distance couple arguing over the phone and was a direct parody of television commercials for Reese's Puffs cereal. Those ads used the tagline "Candy?!... For breakfast? It's Reese's!".

The comic struck a nerve with Something Awful's community. Its popularity encouraged Averill to launch his own webcomic series called Lego Robot Comics, which later rebranded as Plastic Brick Automaton.

How It Spread

After its debut on Something Awful, the Cereal Guy character quickly migrated to imageboards and discussion forums as a standalone reaction image. Users extracted the stick figure from Averill's original comic strip and began inserting him into new contexts, particularly multi-panel comics where the punchline involved either calm indifference or an exaggerated spit-take.

Search interest data for "Cereal Guy" shows a visible trend, though the phrase "STFU when I'm talking" (a caption sometimes paired with the character) never gained comparable traction as a search term. A TinEye reverse image search found that of indexed versions, most retained the "Cereal Guy" name, confirming the character's identity stuck with the community.

The character became closely associated with the rage comic format that dominated sites like Reddit, 4chan, and 9GAG between roughly 2008 and 2012. Cereal Guy was one of several recurring stick figure characters (alongside Trollface, Forever Alone, and others) that formed the core cast of rage comics during this period.

Platforms

4chanReddit9GAGTumblr

Timeline

2010

Cereal Guy emerges in rage comics

2010-2011

Becomes popular for observational humor

2011-01-01

Cereal Guy started spreading across social media platforms

2012

Maintains presence as rage comics peak

2013+

Declines with the broader rage comic format

2015-01-01

Cereal Guy entered the broader pop culture conversation

View on Google Trends

How to Use This Meme

Cereal Guy typically appears in two formats:

The calm version: Place the Cereal Guy eating his cereal in a panel where something dramatic, absurd, or chaotic is happening. The joke is his total lack of reaction. This works for situations where you want to convey "I'm just here watching the mess unfold" or "not my problem."

The spit-take version: Use the spitting variant when reacting to genuinely shocking or unexpected information. The cereal spray adds comedic exaggeration to the surprise.

In both cases, the character often appears in multi-panel comic strips alongside other stick figure characters. The simple art style means anyone can recreate or modify the character in MS Paint or similar tools.

Create Your Own

Cultural Impact

Cereal Guy was part of the first wave of reaction face characters that defined internet humor in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Alongside Trollface, the Y U NO guy, and Forever Alone, he helped establish the rage comic as a dominant meme format across Reddit, 4chan, Tumblr, and Facebook.

The character's creator, Bob Averill, parlayed the comic's success into a full webcomic career with Plastic Brick Automaton, making Cereal Guy one of the earlier examples of a meme launching a creator's broader work.

Urban Dictionary entries for "Cereal Guy" describe the character with typical internet reverence, calling him "a based Chad" and "the most epic cringelord around," reflecting the character's lingering nostalgic status among internet communities.

Fun Facts

The original comic was a parody of Reese's Puffs cereal commercials, not a random creation. The specific tagline being mocked was "Candy?!... For breakfast?".

Bob Averill's meme success led to an entire webcomic series that went through two name changes: Lego Robot Comics, then Plastic Brick Automaton.

TinEye reverse image searches showed the "Cereal Guy" name stuck to the character across the internet, unlike many memes that get renamed as they spread.

Derivatives & Variations

Other observation-based rage comics

A variation of Cereal Guy

(2010)

Creepy watching memes

A variation of Cereal Guy

(2010)

Comfort/discomfort expression comics

A variation of Cereal Guy

(2010)

Frequently Asked Questions

Cereal Guy

2007Reaction image / stick figure comicclassic

Also known as: Cereal Dude · Cereal Spitting Guy

Cereal Guy is a 2007 stick figure meme created by Bob Averill for Something Awful, depicting a casual character eating cereal and used to convey indifference or detached observation of unfolding drama.

Cereal Guy is a stick figure character depicted casually eating cereal, originally drawn by graphic designer Bob Averill for Something Awful's forums in 2007. The character became a staple reaction face on imageboards and forums, typically used to convey indifference, nonchalant observation, or the act of watching drama unfold without getting involved.

reaction memes exploitable templates something awful memes stick figure memes late 2000s memes

Overview

Cereal Guy is a simply drawn stick figure sitting at a table eating a bowl of cereal. The character's defining trait is his unbothered demeanor. In most uses, he's either calmly spooning cereal into his mouth while chaos happens around him, or doing a dramatic spit-take when confronted with something shocking. The clean, minimal art style made him easy to redraw and drop into comic strips, which helped him spread rapidly across early meme communities.

The character exists in two primary modes: the calm version (eating cereal while ignoring something) and the spit-take version (spitting cereal in shock). Both versions became widely used reaction faces in forum posts and imageboard threads throughout the late 2000s and early 2010s.

Graphic designer Bob Averill, posting under the handle Lego_Robot, created the original Cereal Guy comic on the Something Awful forums sometime in 2007. The comic depicted a long-distance couple arguing over the phone and was a direct parody of television commercials for Reese's Puffs cereal. Those ads used the tagline "Candy?!... For breakfast? It's Reese's!".

The comic struck a nerve with Something Awful's community. Its popularity encouraged Averill to launch his own webcomic series called Lego Robot Comics, which later rebranded as Plastic Brick Automaton.

Origin & Background

Platform
Something Awful (original comic), imageboards (viral spread)
Key People
Bob Averill, a.k.a. Lego_Robot
Date
2007

Graphic designer Bob Averill, posting under the handle Lego_Robot, created the original Cereal Guy comic on the Something Awful forums sometime in 2007. The comic depicted a long-distance couple arguing over the phone and was a direct parody of television commercials for Reese's Puffs cereal. Those ads used the tagline "Candy?!... For breakfast? It's Reese's!".

The comic struck a nerve with Something Awful's community. Its popularity encouraged Averill to launch his own webcomic series called Lego Robot Comics, which later rebranded as Plastic Brick Automaton.

How It Spread

After its debut on Something Awful, the Cereal Guy character quickly migrated to imageboards and discussion forums as a standalone reaction image. Users extracted the stick figure from Averill's original comic strip and began inserting him into new contexts, particularly multi-panel comics where the punchline involved either calm indifference or an exaggerated spit-take.

Search interest data for "Cereal Guy" shows a visible trend, though the phrase "STFU when I'm talking" (a caption sometimes paired with the character) never gained comparable traction as a search term. A TinEye reverse image search found that of indexed versions, most retained the "Cereal Guy" name, confirming the character's identity stuck with the community.

The character became closely associated with the rage comic format that dominated sites like Reddit, 4chan, and 9GAG between roughly 2008 and 2012. Cereal Guy was one of several recurring stick figure characters (alongside Trollface, Forever Alone, and others) that formed the core cast of rage comics during this period.

Platforms

4chanReddit9GAGTumblr

Timeline

2010

Cereal Guy emerges in rage comics

2010-2011

Becomes popular for observational humor

2011-01-01

Cereal Guy started spreading across social media platforms

2012

Maintains presence as rage comics peak

2013+

Declines with the broader rage comic format

2015-01-01

Cereal Guy entered the broader pop culture conversation

View on Google Trends

How to Use This Meme

Cereal Guy typically appears in two formats:

The calm version: Place the Cereal Guy eating his cereal in a panel where something dramatic, absurd, or chaotic is happening. The joke is his total lack of reaction. This works for situations where you want to convey "I'm just here watching the mess unfold" or "not my problem."

The spit-take version: Use the spitting variant when reacting to genuinely shocking or unexpected information. The cereal spray adds comedic exaggeration to the surprise.

In both cases, the character often appears in multi-panel comic strips alongside other stick figure characters. The simple art style means anyone can recreate or modify the character in MS Paint or similar tools.

Create Your Own

Cultural Impact

Cereal Guy was part of the first wave of reaction face characters that defined internet humor in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Alongside Trollface, the Y U NO guy, and Forever Alone, he helped establish the rage comic as a dominant meme format across Reddit, 4chan, Tumblr, and Facebook.

The character's creator, Bob Averill, parlayed the comic's success into a full webcomic career with Plastic Brick Automaton, making Cereal Guy one of the earlier examples of a meme launching a creator's broader work.

Urban Dictionary entries for "Cereal Guy" describe the character with typical internet reverence, calling him "a based Chad" and "the most epic cringelord around," reflecting the character's lingering nostalgic status among internet communities.

Fun Facts

The original comic was a parody of Reese's Puffs cereal commercials, not a random creation. The specific tagline being mocked was "Candy?!... For breakfast?".

Bob Averill's meme success led to an entire webcomic series that went through two name changes: Lego Robot Comics, then Plastic Brick Automaton.

TinEye reverse image searches showed the "Cereal Guy" name stuck to the character across the internet, unlike many memes that get renamed as they spread.

Derivatives & Variations

Other observation-based rage comics

A variation of Cereal Guy

(2010)

Creepy watching memes

A variation of Cereal Guy

(2010)

Comfort/discomfort expression comics

A variation of Cereal Guy

(2010)

Frequently Asked Questions