# Hipster Mermaid Hipster Mermaid, also known as Hipster Ariel, is an image macro that pastes text about vinyl records, indie bands, and thrift-store fashion over a screenshot of Ariel from Disney's 1989 film The Little Mermaid[1]. Launched on a Tumblr blog in February 2011 by Braden Graeber, it quickly outgrew its Hipster Kitty inspiration to become one of the defining Disney-hipster mashups of the early 2010s meme boom[2]. ## Origin Blogger Braden Graeber launched the single-topic Tumblr blog F Yeah Hipster Ariel on February 2, 2011, and is credited as the originator of the Hipster Mermaid macro[2]. Graeber followed up by registering a matching @HipsterMermaid Twitter account on February 8, 2011 and a Little Hipster Mermaid Facebook page, giving the joke a small cross-platform home base within the first week[1]. The format borrowed its caption cadence directly from Hipster Kitty but swapped the smug cat for a Disney princess, and that character switch is what set it apart from the pack of similar Advice Animals circulating on Tumblr at the time[1]. - **Platform:** Tumblr (viral spread via Reddit and BuzzFeed) - **Creator:** Braden Graeber - **Date:** 2011 ## Overview Hipster Mermaid, also known as Hipster Ariel, is built on a single frame from Disney's The Little Mermaid where Ariel gazes upward with her chin resting on her hand, a pose that reads as smug and knowing once captions are added[1]. Setups and punchlines follow the Advice Animal template popularized by Hipster Kitty, with jokes about liking bands before they were mainstream, collecting vinyl, and thrifting flannel[3]. The humor keys off the contrast between Ariel's wide-eyed Disney innocence and the deadpan snobbery of hipster stereotypes, and the fact that she is literally underwater lets the format lean into aquatic puns like "so underground it's underwater"[4]. Because the character came preloaded with nostalgic recognition for anyone who grew up in the 1990s, the macro traveled faster than earlier Hipster Kitty jokes and pulled a wider audience into the joke[1]. ## How It Spread The macro jumped from Tumblr to the wider meme ecosystem within days. An r/AdviceAnimals thread on February 6, 2011 helped push it to Reddit's front page, and BuzzFeed followed on February 8, 2011 with a roundup titled "The Best of Hipster Little Mermaid"[1]. MemeBase picked it up on February 10, 2011 with a post joking that the format was "so underground it's underwater," cementing its Advice Animal status[4]. Mainstream press coverage arrived almost immediately, with Time's Newsfeed and New York Magazine's Vulture both writing about the meme in mid-February 2011. Vulture noted that "the 'Hipster Ariel' meme is taking off" and pointed readers to BuzzFeed for the best examples[5]. User-generated versions kept multiplying through image tools like MemeGenerator and Quickmeme, and the character became a template that later spawned a wave of hipster Disney character spin-offs featuring Belle, Jasmine and others[1]. ## How to Use To make a Hipster Mermaid image, people typically drop the seated Ariel screenshot into a standard Advice Animal generator and add two lines of Impact-font text. The common convention is a top-line setup naming something mainstream and a bottom-line punchline claiming Ariel liked it first, collected the vinyl, or found it at a thrift shop, often with a wink toward aquatic wordplay like "underground" or "under the sea"[3]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Hipster Mermaid? Hipster Mermaid, also called Hipster Ariel, is an Advice Animal image macro that pairs a screenshot of Ariel from The Little Mermaid with captions poking fun at hipster stereotypes[1]. ### Where did Hipster Mermaid come from? Blogger Braden Graeber posted the first known example on the Tumblr blog F Yeah Hipster Ariel on February 2, 2011[2]. ### What does Hipster Mermaid mean? The joke plays Ariel's wide-eyed Disney sincerity against smug hipster brags about vinyl, indie bands and thrifted clothing, in the same caption style as Hipster Kitty[1]. ### How do you use Hipster Mermaid? People typically use image generators like MemeGenerator or Quickmeme to add a two-line hipster punchline over the seated Ariel screenshot[3]. ### Is Hipster Mermaid still popular? It peaked in early 2011 with coverage from BuzzFeed, Time and Vulture and is now treated as a classic Advice Animal that inspired later hipster Disney character spin-offs[5]. ## References 1. [https://www.vulture.com/2011/02/see_the_little_mermaid_reinven.html]() 2. [https://web.archive.org/web/20110213024218/http://memebase.com/2011/02/10/memes-go-cry-emo-kid-so-underground-its-underwater/]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/hipster-mermaid-hipster-ariel]() 4. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Mermaid_(1989_film)]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/hipster-mermaid-hipster-ariel Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library