Guy Who Made the Joke vs. Guy Who Said It Louder

2013image macroclassic

Guy Who Made the Joke vs. Guy Who Said It Louder is a two-panel image macro built from the 2013 Key & Peele sketch 'High on Potenuse,' where a quiet student's math pun gets stolen by a louder classmate who wins the whole room. The format simmered on Reddit for years before a Steve Wozniak versus Steve Jobs edit in March 2019 turned it into one of that spring's dominant dankmemes formats.

two panel memesexploitable templatescreator credit memessubreddit origin memesimage macro memes

Overview

The format is almost always a two-panel setup that pairs a soft-spoken originator with a confident copycat, then rewards the copycat with all the credit1. Users swap in famous pairs where the popular version of history sidelined the quieter partner, and the joke works by pointing at the gap between who invented something and who got the applause2.

Captions stay short and rely on the recognizable sketch beat rather than dialogue. The Steve Wozniak versus Steve Jobs pairing that made the format huge on r/dankmemes set the template: the person doing the technical or creative labor is the mumbler on the left, and the person with the microphone is the guy who said it louder on the right2. The word 'potenuse,' a mangled 'hypotenuse' from the original math joke, still gets used as shorthand for the whole trope3.

Origin & Background

Platform
YouTube (source sketch) / Reddit (viral spread)
Creator
Key & Peele
Date
2013

The source material is 'High on Potenuse,' a sketch by comedy duo Key & Peele that Comedy Central posted to YouTube on November 7th, 20131. In the bit, a nervous student whispers a math pun about being 'high on potenuse' to the loud jock next to him, who repeats it at full volume and gets the entire classroom laughing while the actual joke writer sits in silence1.

The scene ran on the third season of Key & Peele on Comedy Central and picked up more than 27 million views on YouTube over the next five years, which gave the trope a durable clip that any meme could point back to4.

How It Spread

Reddit incubated the format long before the mainstream caught on. On April 21st, 2016, redditor threecoolcats posted a still from the sketch to r/me_irl and pulled over 21,300 upvotes, which was the first sign the scene had legs as a standalone image4. Three weeks later, on May 14th, 2016, redditor DrDraculaConstantine posted a screenshot titled 'I wish i was high on potenuse' that added another 7,300 upvotes and cemented the catchphrase3.

The trope jumped out of niche subreddits when actor Cole Sprouse used it on July 30th, 2018 to describe meme culture in a tweet that racked up around 61,000 retweets and 396,000 likes5. A few months later, on December 22nd, 2018, redditor therealjustinjr posted a version to r/BikiniBottomTwitter that hit over 41,300 upvotes and previewed the two-panel style that was about to blow up6.

The breakout came on March 11th, 2019, when redditor mfatah007 posted the Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs edit to r/dankmemes and pulled over 79,600 upvotes in three days2. Copycat posts flooded r/dankmemes, r/HistoryMemes and r/Animemes across the rest of March, turning the format into one of the spring's default reaction templates4.

Frequently Asked Questions

Guy Who Made the Joke vs. Guy Who Said It Louder

2013image macroclassic

Guy Who Made the Joke vs. Guy Who Said It Louder is a two-panel image macro built from the 2013 Key & Peele sketch 'High on Potenuse,' where a quiet student's math pun gets stolen by a louder classmate who wins the whole room. The format simmered on Reddit for years before a Steve Wozniak versus Steve Jobs edit in March 2019 turned it into one of that spring's dominant dankmemes formats.

two panel memes exploitable templates creator credit memes subreddit origin memes image macro memes

Overview

The format is almost always a two-panel setup that pairs a soft-spoken originator with a confident copycat, then rewards the copycat with all the credit1. Users swap in famous pairs where the popular version of history sidelined the quieter partner, and the joke works by pointing at the gap between who invented something and who got the applause2.

Captions stay short and rely on the recognizable sketch beat rather than dialogue. The Steve Wozniak versus Steve Jobs pairing that made the format huge on r/dankmemes set the template: the person doing the technical or creative labor is the mumbler on the left, and the person with the microphone is the guy who said it louder on the right2. The word 'potenuse,' a mangled 'hypotenuse' from the original math joke, still gets used as shorthand for the whole trope3.

Origin & Background

Platform
YouTube (source sketch) / Reddit (viral spread)
Creator
Key & Peele
Date
2013

The source material is 'High on Potenuse,' a sketch by comedy duo Key & Peele that Comedy Central posted to YouTube on November 7th, 20131. In the bit, a nervous student whispers a math pun about being 'high on potenuse' to the loud jock next to him, who repeats it at full volume and gets the entire classroom laughing while the actual joke writer sits in silence1.

The scene ran on the third season of Key & Peele on Comedy Central and picked up more than 27 million views on YouTube over the next five years, which gave the trope a durable clip that any meme could point back to4.

How It Spread

Reddit incubated the format long before the mainstream caught on. On April 21st, 2016, redditor threecoolcats posted a still from the sketch to r/me_irl and pulled over 21,300 upvotes, which was the first sign the scene had legs as a standalone image4. Three weeks later, on May 14th, 2016, redditor DrDraculaConstantine posted a screenshot titled 'I wish i was high on potenuse' that added another 7,300 upvotes and cemented the catchphrase3.

The trope jumped out of niche subreddits when actor Cole Sprouse used it on July 30th, 2018 to describe meme culture in a tweet that racked up around 61,000 retweets and 396,000 likes5. A few months later, on December 22nd, 2018, redditor therealjustinjr posted a version to r/BikiniBottomTwitter that hit over 41,300 upvotes and previewed the two-panel style that was about to blow up6.

The breakout came on March 11th, 2019, when redditor mfatah007 posted the Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs edit to r/dankmemes and pulled over 79,600 upvotes in three days2. Copycat posts flooded r/dankmemes, r/HistoryMemes and r/Animemes across the rest of March, turning the format into one of the spring's default reaction templates4.

Frequently Asked Questions