Gaston

2008viral videoclassic

Gaston is a remix and phrasal template meme built around the boastful song from Disney's 1991 film Beauty and the Beast. Starting with YouTube poop edits in the late 2000s, it exploded in 2016 through recut videos and later became a Twitter format where users swap in absurd activities Gaston is best at.

disney memesyoutube poop memessnowclone memesvillain memestoxic masculinity memes

Overview

Gaston is the vain, muscle-bound antagonist of Disney's 1991 animated film Beauty and the Beast, and the meme built around him revolves almost entirely around the tavern song where his sidekick LeFou cheers him up after Belle turns down his marriage proposal3. The tune's assonant "no one [X]s like Gaston" hook, with lines like "in a wrestling match nobody bites like Gaston," made it ideal raw material for both audio remixes and lyric rewrites2.

Online, Gaston appears in two overlapping formats: chopped-and-screwed YouTube edits of the song scene, and Twitter posts that swap the lyric's verbs and nouns for absurd modern activities1. The character himself was also embraced somewhat ironically as, per Mashable, "the arrogant physical manifestation of toxic masculinity" who is nonetheless one of the most beloved Disney villains3.

How It Spread

Interest picked back up in late 2016. On October 30th, 2016, Redditor Lichzim posted to r/MemeEconomy claiming "Gaston memes" were "on the rise," and a wave of recut YouTube videos followed2. On December 3rd, YouTuber Fresh Memes For Your Health uploaded "Gaston but all the rhymes are switched," and on January 5th, 2017, Emilio The Burrito posted "Gaston, but every time someone says Gaston, he eats 4 dozen eggs"2. YouTuber Friendly Fingers piled on days later with edits that sped the clip up 5% per mention of the name and another that added heavier frame trails with each "Gaston"2.

The character then bled into pop culture writing. On March 17th, 2017, Smosh published a listicle titled "22 of Tumblr's Most Important Thoughts on Disney's Best Villain, Gaston," and on March 22nd the Observer ran Dana Schwartz's slide deck "Why Belle Should Have Chosen Gaston"4. Around the same period, Tropical Storm Gaston in the Atlantic triggered a separate round of song rewrites, with Twitter users mashing the storm's path together with LeFou's lyrics in posts collected by the Daily Mail5.

The biggest single burst came on September 4th, 2018, when Twitter user @readingtheend tweeted a mock exchange building the lines "no one grieves like Gaston, acts bereaved like Gaston" and "no one orders ornate funeral wreaths like Gaston," which drew more than 14,000 retweets and 67,000 likes in three days2. Two days later, Mashable rounded up the wave of copycat rewrites in a listicle of its own3.

How to Use This Meme

The Gaston format typically works as a phrasal template based on LeFou's original lyric structure. People commonly pick a hyper-specific activity, often something unglamorous or inappropriate for the source material, and slot it into the "no one [verb]s like Gaston" or "no one [noun]s like Gaston" frame, chaining two or three variations together to mimic the song's rhyme scheme3. On video, the convention is to take the tavern scene and apply one escalating rule, such as speeding up with every mention of the name or replacing rhymes, rather than editing the visuals from scratch2.

Frequently Asked Questions

Gaston

2008viral videoclassic

Gaston is a remix and phrasal template meme built around the boastful song from Disney's 1991 film Beauty and the Beast. Starting with YouTube poop edits in the late 2000s, it exploded in 2016 through recut videos and later became a Twitter format where users swap in absurd activities Gaston is best at.

disney memes youtube poop memes snowclone memes villain memes toxic masculinity memes

Overview

Gaston is the vain, muscle-bound antagonist of Disney's 1991 animated film Beauty and the Beast, and the meme built around him revolves almost entirely around the tavern song where his sidekick LeFou cheers him up after Belle turns down his marriage proposal3. The tune's assonant "no one [X]s like Gaston" hook, with lines like "in a wrestling match nobody bites like Gaston," made it ideal raw material for both audio remixes and lyric rewrites2.

Online, Gaston appears in two overlapping formats: chopped-and-screwed YouTube edits of the song scene, and Twitter posts that swap the lyric's verbs and nouns for absurd modern activities1. The character himself was also embraced somewhat ironically as, per Mashable, "the arrogant physical manifestation of toxic masculinity" who is nonetheless one of the most beloved Disney villains3.

How It Spread

Interest picked back up in late 2016. On October 30th, 2016, Redditor Lichzim posted to r/MemeEconomy claiming "Gaston memes" were "on the rise," and a wave of recut YouTube videos followed2. On December 3rd, YouTuber Fresh Memes For Your Health uploaded "Gaston but all the rhymes are switched," and on January 5th, 2017, Emilio The Burrito posted "Gaston, but every time someone says Gaston, he eats 4 dozen eggs"2. YouTuber Friendly Fingers piled on days later with edits that sped the clip up 5% per mention of the name and another that added heavier frame trails with each "Gaston"2.

The character then bled into pop culture writing. On March 17th, 2017, Smosh published a listicle titled "22 of Tumblr's Most Important Thoughts on Disney's Best Villain, Gaston," and on March 22nd the Observer ran Dana Schwartz's slide deck "Why Belle Should Have Chosen Gaston"4. Around the same period, Tropical Storm Gaston in the Atlantic triggered a separate round of song rewrites, with Twitter users mashing the storm's path together with LeFou's lyrics in posts collected by the Daily Mail5.

The biggest single burst came on September 4th, 2018, when Twitter user @readingtheend tweeted a mock exchange building the lines "no one grieves like Gaston, acts bereaved like Gaston" and "no one orders ornate funeral wreaths like Gaston," which drew more than 14,000 retweets and 67,000 likes in three days2. Two days later, Mashable rounded up the wave of copycat rewrites in a listicle of its own3.

How to Use This Meme

The Gaston format typically works as a phrasal template based on LeFou's original lyric structure. People commonly pick a hyper-specific activity, often something unglamorous or inappropriate for the source material, and slot it into the "no one [verb]s like Gaston" or "no one [noun]s like Gaston" frame, chaining two or three variations together to mimic the song's rhyme scheme3. On video, the convention is to take the tavern scene and apply one escalating rule, such as speeding up with every mention of the name or replacing rhymes, rather than editing the visuals from scratch2.

Frequently Asked Questions