Erdogan shaking hands with Bashar al-Assad

Erdogan

2015image macroclassic

Published August 5, 2026

Erdogan refers to an image macro pairing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan with Gollum from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films. The comparison gained international attention in late 2015 after a Turkish doctor was prosecuted for sharing it on Facebook, forcing a court to formally evaluate whether Gollum was a hero or villain.

two panel memes streisand effect memes political satire memes lord of the rings doppelganger memes

Overview

Erdogan is a side-by-side image macro that pairs photos of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan with stills of Gollum from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films2. The joke works on matching expressions, open mouths, wide eyes, similar hand gestures, letting the visual do the punchline without needing a caption.

The format is best known internationally because of a 2015 Turkish criminal case built around it. Turkish doctor Bilgin Çiftçi was prosecuted after sharing the comparison on Facebook, and the court ended up commissioning an expert panel to determine whether Gollum was a hero or a villain before it could rule on the insult charge4. English-language readers picked up on the case as a textbook Streisand Effect situation3.

Origin & Background

Platform
Facebook (origin) / Reddit (viral spread)
Date
2015

The Erdogan Gollum comparison spread on Turkish social media in 2015, but the moment that turned it into an international meme was Çiftçi's trial that year. Prosecutors argued the image insulted the president, a crime under Turkish law4. In his defense, Çiftçi told the court the comparison was not insulting because Gollum is often read as a heroic character rather than a villain3.

The judge accepted the argument seriously enough to convene an expert panel of academics, psychologists, and a film and television expert to evaluate Gollum's moral alignment before the case could reconvene in February 20164.

How It Spread

On December 2nd, 2015, Redditor Karrakan posted an article about the court case to r/worldnews3. Within 12 hours the thread had more than 6,600 upvotes and roughly 1,300 comments, with 97% of votes positive3. The same day, Redditor SmokeyBare posted the actual side-by-side image to r/pics, where it hit the front page with over 8,900 upvotes and 2,400 comments in the first six hours3. Commenters immediately framed the situation as a Streisand Effect case study, arguing the prosecution was pushing the image in front of a far larger audience than it would ever have reached otherwise3.

Coverage jumped from Reddit into mainstream English-language outlets, with the absurd detail of a court literally judging Gollum driving most of the reporting4. The meme stayed a reference point for political censorship stories about Turkey through the 2016 coup attempt and the mass arrests that followed, which detained more than 50,000 people2.

Erdoğan's own political career kept refreshing interest in the format. His 52.5% victory in the June 2018 presidential election, run under expanded executive powers granted by a 2017 referendum, brought another wave of critical image macros from opposition-aligned accounts online1.

How to Use This Meme

The template typically pairs a Gollum still with an Erdoğan photo showing a matching facial expression, no caption needed. Common convention leaves both images unlabeled and lets the visual similarity carry the joke. Variations sometimes swap in other Middle-earth characters or pair the Gollum still with different world leaders.

Frequently Asked Questions