What is For Those Who Didn't Catch the Reference?

It is a Twitter parody format that mocks a 2019 tweet by @_greys claiming Joker (2019) was referencing The Dark Knight (2008), based only on both films showing the Joker inside a police car.

Where did For Those Who Didn't Catch the Reference come from?

Twitter user @_greys posted the original side-by-side on October 6, 2019, pairing Joaquin Phoenix's Joker with Heath Ledger's Joker, both in the back of police cars.

What does For Those Who Didn't Catch the Reference mean?

It is used sarcastically to point out an obvious, trivial, or nonexistent similarity between two things while pretending to spot a hidden cinematic nod.

Is For Those Who Didn't Catch the Reference still popular?

The viral moment lived mostly in October 2019 around the release of Joker, with Twitter even collecting the parodies into a dedicated Event, though the format still shows up as a reusable joke about overblown reference-spotting.

For Those Who Didn't Catch the Reference

Q: How do you use For Those Who Didn't Catch the Reference?

People typically post two images side by side, often one from a popular movie and one wildly unrelated, with the caption "For those who didn't catch the reference" to claim an absurdly thin connection, like Phoenix's Joker next to Bradley Cooper or Danny DeVito.

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Published October 23, 2026

On October 6, 2019, Twitter user @_greys posted side-by-side images of Joaquin Phoenix and Heath Ledger as the Joker sitting in police cars with the caption "for those who didn't catch the reference," insisting Joker (2019) nodded to The Dark Knight (2008). Within days, mocking parodies replaced the Phoenix photo with Bradley Cooper in A Star Is Born and Danny DeVito's "Nice Egg" scene, turning the earnest claim into a template for absurd film comparisons.

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Overview

The joke runs on a dumb logic: any two images with a loose visual overlap can be presented as a "deep" cinematic callback. Parodies either replace one half of the diptych with a totally unrelated picture or dial up the obviousness by stating that both pictures literally contain the same thing1. The humor sits in the gap between the earnest, almost film-school tone of the caption and how trivial the claimed connection is5.

Text-only riffs do the same work without photos. One widely shared version argued that Arthur Fleck killing people in Joker (2019) was "a subtle reference" to The Joker killing people in The Dark Knight (2008)2, while a one-line reply simply pointed out that both shots have the Joker in them3. In parody image form, the Phoenix photo gets placed next to anyone else sitting down or looking somber, with Bradley Cooper from A Star Is Born and Danny DeVito from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia among the most-shared matches4 6.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

Twitter

Creator

@_greys

Date

2019

On October 6, 2019, Twitter user @_greys posted two images stacked together: Joaquin Phoenix's Joker in the back of a police car in Joker (2019), next to Heath Ledger's Joker in the same position in The Dark Knight (2008). The caption read "For those who didn't catch the reference"1. The tweet drew more than 5,900 retweets and 30,000 likes, but most of the quote-tweets and replies pushed back on the idea that two shots of an arrested Joker counted as a meaningful homage from Todd Phillips' film to Christopher Nolan's5.

How It Spread

Mockery arrived quickly as users turned the original tweet into a template. On October 8, @imageofDanny tweeted the Joker (2019) still beside The Dark Knight with the deadpan line that Arthur Fleck killing people was a subtle reference to The Joker killing people, earning over 18,000 likes2. The same day, @spacejamfan posted the terse observation "damn both shots have the joker in them"3.

Parody images followed within days. @GrossmanMax placed Phoenix's Joker next to Bradley Cooper's Jackson Maine from A Star Is Born and gained more than 8,500 likes4. @steph_soh matched the Joker photo with Danny DeVito's "Nice Egg" face from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, drawing over 9,500 likes6. Twitter later collected the running joke in a Moments-style Event titled "But are you sure you caught that reference in Joker?"7.

Timeline

2019-10-06

Twitter user @_greys posts the original side-by-side of Joaquin Phoenix and Heath Ledger as the Joker in police cars with the caption "For those who didn't catch the reference"[1].

2019-10-08

@imageofDanny tweets a parody noting that Arthur Fleck killing people references The Joker killing people, gaining over 18,000 likes[2].

2019-10-08

@spacejamfan jokes that "both shots have the joker in them"[3].

2019-10-09

@GrossmanMax posts a parody matching Phoenix's Joker with Bradley Cooper in A Star Is Born[4].

2019-10-10

@steph_soh posts a parody matching Phoenix's Joker with Danny DeVito's "Nice Egg" face from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia[6].

2019-10-10

Twitter curates the parodies into a Twitter Event titled "But are you sure you caught that reference in Joker?"[7].