Facebomb

2007photoshop memeclassic

Facebomb is a Photoshop technique where one person's face from a group photo gets pasted over every other face in the same shot. The format traces back to 4chan's Weegee edits in 2007 and hit peak visibility on Reddit and Tumblr between 2010 and 2012.

photoshop memesface swap memes4chan memesexploitable templateslate 2000s memes

Overview

Facebomb is a Photoshop trick where one person's face is lifted from a group photograph and then cloned over every other face in the same image1. Unlike a straight face swap, which trades faces between two people, a facebomb multiplies a single face across the entire frame so a whole cast, crowd, or beauty pageant lineup ends up wearing the same expression1.

The humor is in the pattern break. Viewers expect variety in a group shot, and instead see the same person staring back four, six, or a dozen times. On Reddit the format is usually shown in a vertical four-panel image, with the facebomb saved for the final reveal panel and the caption "am I doing this right?"1.

How It Spread

The Photoshop meaning took over in late 2009. On December 1st, 2009, the single-topic blog Nic Cage as Everyone posted a Seinfeld cast photo with every character's face replaced by Nicolas Cage, one of the first widely shared facebombs on the open web2. The following summer, on July 13th, 2010, the news blog Urlesque ran a roundup of standout facebomb edits that pushed the format past its 4chan roots1.

Reddit made it a running joke. On September 13th, 2010, user Jgunman posted a four-pane image of Miss Universe contestants ending in a facebomb reveal to r/pics under the title "First Post. Am I Doing This Right?" The post pulled in more than 2,700 upvotes and 440 comments before being archived1. A dedicated Facebomb Tumblr launched on October 6th, 2010, collecting the best examples in one feed4.

The format kept surfacing over the next two years. On November 26th, 2011, 9GAG user danielma90 uploaded a facebomb captioned "Difficulty Level, Asian"7. Smosh published a 20-image facebomb compilation on January 20th, 20126, and on July 19th, 2012, the FaceBomb mobile app shipped, letting phone users clone a face over every subject in a photo automatically1.

How to Use This Meme

To make a facebomb, pick a group photo, sample one face from it, then paste that same face over each other person in the shot, matching skin tone and angle as best you can. The common Reddit convention is to stack the original photo and the edited version in a four-panel image, with the facebomb saved for the final panel and a caption like "am I doing this right?"1.

Frequently Asked Questions

Facebomb

2007photoshop memeclassic

Facebomb is a Photoshop technique where one person's face from a group photo gets pasted over every other face in the same shot. The format traces back to 4chan's Weegee edits in 2007 and hit peak visibility on Reddit and Tumblr between 2010 and 2012.

photoshop memes face swap memes 4chan memes exploitable templates late 2000s memes

Overview

Facebomb is a Photoshop trick where one person's face is lifted from a group photograph and then cloned over every other face in the same image1. Unlike a straight face swap, which trades faces between two people, a facebomb multiplies a single face across the entire frame so a whole cast, crowd, or beauty pageant lineup ends up wearing the same expression1.

The humor is in the pattern break. Viewers expect variety in a group shot, and instead see the same person staring back four, six, or a dozen times. On Reddit the format is usually shown in a vertical four-panel image, with the facebomb saved for the final reveal panel and the caption "am I doing this right?"1.

How It Spread

The Photoshop meaning took over in late 2009. On December 1st, 2009, the single-topic blog Nic Cage as Everyone posted a Seinfeld cast photo with every character's face replaced by Nicolas Cage, one of the first widely shared facebombs on the open web2. The following summer, on July 13th, 2010, the news blog Urlesque ran a roundup of standout facebomb edits that pushed the format past its 4chan roots1.

Reddit made it a running joke. On September 13th, 2010, user Jgunman posted a four-pane image of Miss Universe contestants ending in a facebomb reveal to r/pics under the title "First Post. Am I Doing This Right?" The post pulled in more than 2,700 upvotes and 440 comments before being archived1. A dedicated Facebomb Tumblr launched on October 6th, 2010, collecting the best examples in one feed4.

The format kept surfacing over the next two years. On November 26th, 2011, 9GAG user danielma90 uploaded a facebomb captioned "Difficulty Level, Asian"7. Smosh published a 20-image facebomb compilation on January 20th, 20126, and on July 19th, 2012, the FaceBomb mobile app shipped, letting phone users clone a face over every subject in a photo automatically1.

How to Use This Meme

To make a facebomb, pick a group photo, sample one face from it, then paste that same face over each other person in the shot, matching skin tone and angle as best you can. The common Reddit convention is to stack the original photo and the edited version in a four-panel image, with the facebomb saved for the final panel and a caption like "am I doing this right?"1.

Frequently Asked Questions