How do you use Is The Cure To Male Loneliness Out On The Pickleball Court?

Posters typically keep the NYT screenshot and Marra artwork intact and only replace the pickleball phrase in the headline with something ridiculous, escapist, or hyper-niche.

Is Is The Cure To Male Loneliness Out On The Pickleball Court still popular?

The template had its main run in July 2023 across Twitter and Instagram meme pages, with iterations lasting into late July before dropping off.

Is The Cure To Male Loneliness Out On The Pickleball Court

Q: What is Is The Cure To Male Loneliness Out On The Pickleball Court?

It is a phrasal template meme built from a screenshot of a July 2023 New York Times opinion column by Michelle Cottle and an illustration by Benjamin Marra.

Q: Where did Is The Cure To Male Loneliness Out On The Pickleball Court come from?

The source article was published by the NYT on July 19th, 2023, and Twitter user @TheMiddleborne posted the first known edit the same day, swapping pickleball for "Retaking Constantinople".

Q: What does Is The Cure To Male Loneliness Out On The Pickleball Court mean?

Edits play the earnest headline off an absurd or oddly specific replacement subject, using the crying onlooker illustration to sell the joke about implausible cures for male loneliness.

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Published August 15, 2026

A phrasal template meme built from a July 2023 New York Times opinion column by Michelle Cottle. Meme creators screenshotted the article's headline and Benjamin Marra illustration of a redheaded man crying at a pickleball court, then swapped the sport for any absurd alternative cure.

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Overview

Is the Cure to Male Loneliness Out on the Pickleball Court is a phrasal template built from a screenshot of a New York Times opinion column published in July 20231. The original piece was written by Michelle Cottle and paired with an illustration by Benjamin Marra showing a redheaded man crying while he watches others play pickleball1. The composition of the sad onlooker and the earnest question in the headline made the layout easy to remix.

On the format, also cataloged as "Is the Cure to Male Loneliness X," meme creators swap the words after "male loneliness" with any subject they want to frame as an unlikely fix, from historical fantasies to hyper-specific hobbies4. The joke usually works by pairing the melancholic image with something ridiculous, absurd, or oddly niche2.

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Origin & Background

Platform

New York Times (source) / Twitter (viral spread)

Creator

@TheMiddleborne

Date

2023

The opinion piece "Is the Cure to Male Loneliness Out on the Pickleball Court?" was published by the New York Times on July 19th, 20231. Later the same day, Twitter user @PresidentToguro posted a screenshot of the article with the caption "we don't got pickleball courts in the trenches," picking up more than 400 likes over the next five days5.

Also on July 19th, Twitter user @TheMiddleborne posted what is credited as the first variation, editing the headline to ask about "Retaking Constantinople" instead of pickleball2. The tweet pulled in roughly 13,500 likes in four days and set the pattern that later versions copied4.

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How It Spread

On July 20th, 2023, Instagram meme page @wholemilkmemes_ reposted @TheMiddleborne's Constantinople edit, where it collected about 35,800 likes in four days3. Other Instagram accounts jumped on it the same day, including @overheardonwallstreet, whose finance-flavored take reached roughly 9,800 likes6.

On July 21st, Instagram user @botoxqueen1968 shared a version originally posted to @instantdecaf's story, which brought in around 12,700 likes in three days3. Iterations and reposts kept surfacing on Twitter through late July 20237 before the format cooled off later that summer4.

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Instagram

How to Use This Meme

The template typically involves taking the NYT article screenshot and swapping "Pickleball Court" for anything the poster wants to frame as an implausible cure for male loneliness, often something warlike, escapist, or very online2. A common convention keeps Benjamin Marra's crying redhead illustration intact and only edits the headline text, so the sad-onlooker framing carries the joke while the new caption does the punchline3.