Gadsden Flag Don T Tread On Me — Yellow Gadsden flag with coiled rattlesnake and 'Dont Tread On Me' text.

Gadsden Flag Don T Tread On Me

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Published August 24, 2026

The Gadsden Flag is a 1775 American Revolutionary War design showing a coiled rattlesnake on a yellow field above the phrase DON'T TREAD ON ME. It picked up new life online through Tea Party rally imagery in 2009 and the No Step on Snek parody variant that spread on 4chan and Reddit in 2015 and 2016.

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Overview

The Gadsden Flag pairs a coiled rattlesnake baring its fangs with the phrase DON'T TREAD ON ME on a bright yellow background, one of the older American flag designs still in wide public use1. It is named after South Carolina Continental Congress delegate Christopher Gadsden and was flown by the newly launched American Navy in 17751.

Around 2009 the design saw heavy display at Tea Party protest rallies, which pushed it back into public view and made both the snake and the DON'T TREAD ON ME phrase a frequent target for parody online3. The flag also stayed in regular military use, and beginning September 11, 2002, all U.S. Navy ships were ordered to fly the related First Navy Jack2.

Origin & Background

Platform
American Navy (historical) / 4chan and Reddit (parody spread)
Creator
Christopher Gadsden
Date
1775

The rattlesnake symbol predates the flag itself. Benjamin Franklin's 1750s political cartoon Join, or Die drew the American colonies as a dismembered snake, playing on a superstition that a snake cut apart could revive if reassembled before sundown4. The pieces were labeled from South Carolina at the tail to New England at the head4.

Colonel Christopher Gadsden saw an existing coiled-snake design being used by the Marines of the newly formed American Navy and was so taken with it that in 1775 he ordered an official flag be made from it, giving the banner his name3.

How It Spread

The flag stayed in circulation as a patriotic and military symbol for centuries, and supporters of U.S. national soccer teams like Sam's Army and The American Outlaws flew it starting in the late 1980s3. Its biggest modern comeback came during 2009 Tea Party protests. Rick Wyatt, who runs a flag store in Glen Burnie, Maryland, told the Boston Globe that his Gadsden inventory started evaporating and a year's worth of sales came in a single day1.

The Tea Party association drew backlash. In New Rochelle, New York, the city council voted 5-2 to have the flag removed from a local military armory after complaints that it had turned into a Tea Party symbol2. The United Veterans Memorial and Patriotic Association took the case toward court with help from the Thomas More Law Center2.

Online, the design turned into a template. Around mid-to-late 2015, parody images swapping DON'T TREAD ON ME for the intentionally misspelled No Step on Snek spread across 4chan, Tumblr and Reddit3. On January 20th, 2016, Reddit user Pazda posted a /pol/ compilation that included a minimalist Comic Sans pls no step version, and it pulled more than 4,500 points before archival3. On October 21st, 2016, Redditor DeltaHDot uploaded a photo of U.S. military personnel holding up a hand-drawn no step on snek flag to r/funny, where it earned over 6,340 points inside a week3.

How to Use This Meme

Common convention is to keep the coiled snake and the yellow field but swap the caption with an intentionally misspelled or joke phrase, with No Step on Snek being the parody line that took off3. Crude MS Paint drawings and Comic Sans typography are typical shortcuts, following the pls no step template that circulated on Reddit and 4chan in 20163.

Frequently Asked Questions