Cut Homeless People In Half by 2025 — Wider view of UK train poster with Conservatives logo stating they will cut all homeless people in half by 2025

Cut Homeless People In Half by 2025

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Published October 21, 2026

Satirical fake billboard made by British street artist Fokawolf in July 2019 that mimicked UK Conservative Party branding with the absurd pledge "We plan to cut all homeless people in half by 2025." Many Reddit and Twitter viewers missed the parody and reacted as though the Tories had announced literal bisection, which produced a short run of Dark Knight and Nobody edits across r/HolUp, r/Europe and r/dankmemes through late July 2019.

political satire memes british memes hoax memes dark humor memes absurdist humor memes

Overview

Fokawolf's poster borrows the Conservative Party's blue color scheme and clean sans-serif layout to parody actual Tory campaign talk about halving homelessness figures1. The gag works through a deliberately horrifying literal reading: instead of reducing the number of homeless people, the fake ad promises to physically bisect each one. Fokawolf posted it alongside two companion parodies, one pledging to "erase all disabled people by December 2020" and another slamming Boris Johnson as "another little snotty nosed softcock"4.

Rather than reading the piece as commentary on Tory homelessness policy, many online viewers took it at face value. Posters joked as if the Conservatives had drafted the slogan themselves, which produced reaction edits using a Dark Knight still and the "Nobody:" setup5. The confusion itself became a secondary joke, with Twitter user @ItsBorys writing "A team of people were paid to produce this" over the image6.

Origin & Background

Platform
Instagram (Fokawolf) / Reddit (viral spread)
Creator
Fokawolf
Date
2019

On July 18, 2019, Instagram user and British street artist Fokawolf posted a mock Conservative Party advertisement with the headline "We plan to cut all homeless people in half by 2025"1. The image was one of three fake political ads Fokawolf shared that week, each parodying UK Tory messaging, including a mock disability-policy announcement and a jab at Boris Johnson4. The slogan plays on official Conservative claims about cutting homelessness statistics, flipping statistical halving into physical halving for shock-satire effect.

How It Spread

Within hours of the Instagram post, Redditor ProjectCookies reposted the image to r/HolUp, where it collected over 23,000 upvotes2. User Zeus1027 cross-posted it to r/Europe under the title "Why Britain Why," and the thread score reached more than 60,0003. On July 19, Redditor AndeanRock submitted a joke to r/dankmemes combining the ad with a still from The Dark Knight, which earned over 31,000 points5.

Twitter picked up the image the same week. @ItsBorys shared it with the caption "A team of people were paid to produce this," collecting over 14,000 retweets and 78,000 likes6. User @mohamhumadi posted an "If a Dog Wore Pants" edit of the slogan shortly after8. Compilation sites eBaum's World7 and Memebase gathered the jokes into roundups through the end of July 2019.

Much of the virality came from viewers believing the ad was genuine Conservative Party output rather than a Fokawolf parody, which Know Your Meme documented in its entry on the image4.

Timeline

2019-07-18

Fokawolf posts the fake Conservative Party ad to Instagram[1].

2019-07-18

Redditor ProjectCookies reposts the image to r/HolUp, where it collects over 23,000 upvotes[2].

2019-07-18

User Zeus1027 cross-posts the image to r/Europe, where the score reaches over 60,000[3].

2019-07-19

Redditor AndeanRock posts a Dark Knight edit of the ad to r/dankmemes, earning over 31,000 points[5].

2019-07-19

Twitter user @ItsBorys shares the image with the caption "A team of people were paid to produce this," collecting over 78,000 likes[6].

2019-07-20

Redditor 2Pac_if posts a Nobody-format joke using the ad to r/dankmemes[4].

2019-07

EBaum's World publishes a compilation of the jokes[7].

How to Use This Meme

Edits typically combine the Conservative ad image with a reaction setup. Common conventions include the "Nobody:" format and Dark Knight stills, often as a baffled response to the fake slogan read literally5.

Frequently Asked Questions