Gamers During WW3 — Soldiers in camouflage with floating video game gamertags and kill-feed overlay in a forest scene

Gamers During WW3

2020image macroclassic

Published November 12, 2026

Gamers During WW3 refers to Reddit comparison memes from January 2020 that imagined how fanbases of different video games would behave if conscripted into a global war, each playerbase weaponizing in-game mechanics. By January 5, 2020, the format had settled into a structured template on /r/dankmemes.

gaming two panel memes subreddit origin memes fortnite memes fandom discourse memes

Overview

Typical posts picture Fortnite players throwing up wooden walls mid-firefight, Grand Theft Auto players hauling an entire suitcase arsenal, and Call of Duty veterans walking off headshots like respawn timers1. That joke targets how each playerbase's muscle memory would translate, badly or absurdly, into actual combat3.

Most examples follow a side-by-side comparison layout. One January 2020 meme by Redditor zulhilmeme stacked Call of Duty, Fortnite and Team Fortress 2 players against each other, with every caption playing on a signature mechanic4. Fortnite's rapid building became the running centerpiece because its playerbase was already the main target of Reddit ridicule at the time2.

Origin & Background

Platform
Reddit
Date
2020

The concept predates the January 2020 spread. Sketch troupe The Whitest Kids U' Know aired an episode called "Call of Duty" on February 3, 2009, which showed three soldiers who turn out to be players in an online multiplayer match7. On October 23, 2018, an anonymous 4chan /b/ user wrote a greentext imagining Generation Z drafted to fight Vietnam in 2020, and the screenshot was reposted to /r/4chan the next day where it collected over 20,700 upvotes9.

The format took off alongside World War III memes in early January 2020. Redditor JPGameGuide posted the first Fortnite WW3 image to /r/memes on January 3, 20202. Within an hour, Redditor Rthanos uploaded a near-identical meme to /r/dankmemes, which collected over 94,400 upvotes in five days1.

How It Spread

Comparison posts followed the same day. On January 3, 2020, Redditor dddbait put up the first known playerbase comparison meme in /r/dankmemes, picking up over 400 upvotes6. Later that day, zulhilmeme's Call of Duty, Fortnite and Team Fortress 2 comparison reached over 7,500 upvotes on /r/tf24.

On January 4, 2020, Redditor stalinisOURdaddy posted a comparison featuring Call of Duty, Fortnite and medieval RPG players, which collected over 42,000 upvotes in four days5. A January 5, 2020 post by Redditor ThunderCobra72 locked in the template structure that later imitators copied8. Across those three days, the Gamers During WW3 format was mostly confined to /r/dankmemes, /r/memes and game-specific subreddits like /r/tf23.

Timeline

2009-02-03

The Whitest Kids U' Know airs its "Call of Duty" sketch, an early precursor showing soldiers who turn out to be in an online match.

2018-10-23

An anonymous 4chan /b/ user posts a greentext imagining Gen Z drafted to fight Vietnam in 2020, later reposted to /r/4chan with 20,700+ upvotes.

2020-01-03

JPGameGuide posts the first Fortnite WW3 meme to /r/memes; Rthanos posts a near-identical version to /r/dankmemes that reaches 94,400+ upvotes.

2020-01-03

Dddbait posts the first known playerbase comparison meme on /r/dankmemes; zulhilmeme's CoD/Fortnite/TF2 comparison hits 7,500+ upvotes.

2020-01-04

StalinisOURdaddy's CoD/Fortnite/medieval RPG comparison reaches over 42,000 upvotes on /r/dankmemes.

2020-01-05

ThunderCobra72 posts the meme whose structure later entries followed as a template.

How to Use This Meme

Pick two or three video games with distinct mechanics, then show each fanbase applying its in-game habits to a real World War III scenario. Common convention is a vertical comparison layout, with the Fortnite player always building a wall and the Call of Duty player handling combat like a respawn match5.

Frequently Asked Questions