Elephants online refers to the wide body of viral videos, image macros, and Reddit communities built around real-life elephant footage, from a 2008 painting clip to endless baby elephant GIFs.

Where did Elephants come from?

The trend kicked off with a March 7th, 2008 YouTube video of an elephant painting a self-portrait, followed by the launch of the /r/elephants subreddit on April 25th, 2010.

What does Elephants mean?

In meme contexts, Elephants points to viral clips of the animals themselves. In slang, it can also mean drunk, from cockney rhyming slang for 'elephant's trunk'.

Is Elephants still popular?

The main viral wave ran through the mid-2010s. As of March 2015, the Elephants Facebook interest page had over 134,000 likes and r/babyelephantgifs had over 65,900 subscribers.

Elephants

Q: How do you use Elephants?

Most usage takes the form of sharing short clips and GIFs of real elephants doing surprising or heart-warming things, sourced from r/elephants or r/babyelephantgifs.

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Published August 31, 2026

Elephants became one of the internet's longest-running wholesome animal genres, sparked by a 2008 YouTube clip of a captive elephant painting a self-portrait with a flower. From the launch of the r/elephants subreddit in 2010 to the r/babyelephantgifs community that hit 65,900 subscribers within a year, the giant mammals fed a steady stream of viral videos, an image macro called Bad Luck Elephant, and dedicated fan communities.

animal memes wholesome memes pet video memes advice animals subreddit origin memes

Overview

The Elephants meme covers viral YouTube footage, image macros, and animal-content communities on Reddit2. The tone skews overwhelmingly wholesome, with clips highlighting oversized personalities: newborns tripping over their own trunks, herds greeting old friends after decades apart, and juveniles knocking down humans mid-hug. Baby elephant clips carved out their own dedicated subgenre4.

The image macro side is smaller but real. In February 2014, 'Bad Luck Elephant' riffed on the Bad Luck Brian format with an elephant photo and pulled in more than 3,200 upvotes on r/AdviceAnimals before being archived6. Outside internet culture, 'elephants' still carries older slang uses, including cockney rhyming slang short for 'elephant's trunk' meaning drunk8.

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Origin & Background

Platform

YouTube (source creation) / Reddit (viral spread)

Date

2008

On March 7th, 2008, the Gifts with a Cause YouTube channel uploaded footage of an elephant painting a picture of an elephant holding a flower, a clip that pulled over 9.7 million views and 14,900 comments over the next seven years1. Reddit picked up the subject on April 25th, 2010 with the launch of /r/elephants, a discussion hub for photos, news, and media about the animals2.

How It Spread

Viral elephant footage kept multiplying across YouTube through the early 2010s. On September 19th, 2011, the Evolve Campaigns channel posted a clip of two elephants reuniting after a 20-year separation, pulling in roughly 8.7 million views within four years3. On November 11th, 2014, the NYPost channel uploaded footage of a lone elephant escaping an attack by 14 lions, which gathered around 22 million views over the following four months7. By March 2015, the 'Elephants' interest page on Facebook had racked up over 134,000 likes5.

Baby elephant footage became its own thread. YouTuber koveosd's October 2011 clip of a newborn accidentally stepping on its own trunk pulled in over 3.5 million views, and a December 2012 video of a young elephant knocking a man over during a hug hit 6.1 million views5. The r/babyelephantgifs subreddit launched on March 9th, 2014 and grew to 65,900 subscribers within a year4. On April 7th of that year, BuzzFeed published a compilation titled '17 Baby Elephants Learning How To Use Their Trunks' drawn from that subreddit4.

How to Use This Meme

Most sharing happens through short clips and GIFs of real elephants doing surprising or heart-warming things, often reposted from r/elephants or r/babyelephantgifs onto broader feeds2 4. The Bad Luck Elephant image macro follows the Bad Luck Brian template: an elephant photo with two lines of black impact text describing a misfortune6.