# If You Know What I Mean If You Know What I Mean is a rage comic face built from a still of Rowan Atkinson as Mr. Bean, used to flag a sexual innuendo or double entendre in a post. It broke out on 9gag in late January 2012 and quickly became the go-to reaction image for lampshading a dirty joke online[1]. ## Origin The Mr. Bean version of the gag first showed up on 9gag on January 28th, 2012, when user aldik101 posted a screen capture from the 2007 comedy film Mr. Bean's Holiday under the caption "Let's watch a movie, if you know what I mean"[1]. The source frame comes from Atkinson's performance in the film, whose original trailer footage is preserved on YouTube[4]. Later that same day, 9gag user elyo11 posted an extended rage comic that added a cleaned-up vector version of Atkinson's expression paired with the caption "If you know what I mean," which is the template that ended up circulating as the actual reaction face[1]. - **Platform:** 9gag (rage face) / Urban Dictionary (phrase) - **Creator:** aldik101 (9gag user) - **Date:** 2012 ## Overview If You Know What I Mean pairs a vectorized still of Rowan Atkinson as Mr. Bean, eyebrows raised and mouth slightly pursed, with the caption "if you know what I mean"[1]. The face is dropped at the end of a post or image macro to signal a sexual double entendre the reader is supposed to catch, a trick TV Tropes files under the "Lampshaded Double Entendre" trope[2]. Though it started as a rage face, the character is often used the same way as reactions like You Don't Say? or We've Got a Badass Over Here, sitting in the final panel of a vertical rage comic to punctuate the joke[1]. The phrase itself is much older than the image, with Urban Dictionary entries defining it as a "way to make a statement 'dirty'" going back to 2003[3]. ## How It Spread By January 29th, 2012, a blank template of the rage face had been posted to the humor site Meme-O-Rama, and on January 31st a FunnyJunk user going by potatoos ran the face in a vertical rage comic of their own[1]. On February 1st, 9gag user iv4eto_19_95 posted a poem accompanied by the Mr. Bean rage face titled "If you know what I mean," which pulled in over 56,900 up votes and 7,200 Facebook shares within nine months[1]. On February 23rd, 2012, Smosh published a roundup titled "Best Of The 'If You Know What I Mean' Face!" that collected notable examples from the series, helping push it outside the rage comic subculture[1]. By November 2012 the meme had a dedicated Facebook page with more than 73,000 likes, and Advice Animal versions were showing up on template generators like Quickmeme and MemeGenerator[1]. ## How to Use The convention is simple: end a sentence with an unambiguously innocent phrase that also reads as an innuendo, then paste the Mr. Bean face directly under the text or in the final panel of a vertical rage comic. It typically works best when the double meaning is thin enough that most readers would catch it anyway, since the face is doing the "lampshading" work of pointing at the joke[2]. The phrase alone, without the image, is often used the same way in plain text conversations, a habit Urban Dictionary already documented years before the rage face existed[3]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is If You Know What I Mean? It is a rage comic reaction face based on a still of Rowan Atkinson as Mr. Bean, used to point out a sexual double entendre in a post or image macro[1]. ### Where did If You Know What I Mean come from? The rage face was first posted by 9gag user aldik101 on January 28th, 2012, using a screen capture from Mr. Bean's Holiday, with an extended vectorized version posted the same day by user elyo11[1]. ### What does If You Know What I Mean mean? The phrase is a way to make a statement sound dirty by hinting at a hidden sexual meaning, a use Urban Dictionary documented as early as August 2003[3]. ### How do you use If You Know What I Mean? It is typically dropped at the end of a sentence or in the final panel of a rage comic to flag a double entendre, functioning as what TV Tropes calls a "Lampshaded Double Entendre"[2]. ### Is If You Know What I Mean still popular? It is a classic 2012-era rage comic face that peaked alongside 9gag and FunnyJunk's rage comic boom, with a dedicated Facebook page passing 73,000 likes by November of that year[1]. ## References 1. [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=If%20You%20Know%20What%20I%20Mean]() 2. [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LampshadedDoubleEntendre]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/if-you-know-what-i-mean]() 4. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-BfQ7hJ6Po]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/if-you-know-what-i-mean Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library