It Will Be Fun, They Said — Kayaker on clear blue water with a large shark swimming underneath

It Will Be Fun, They Said

2011image macroclassic

Published September 1, 2026

It Will Be Fun, They Said is a snowclone image macro that pairs an ill-advised activity with a photo of its miserable payoff. The template took off in September 2011 after a post-Hurricane Irene shot of a man in a viking helmet standing in a flooded laundry room got the caption, kicking off a wave of copycats across Reddit, FunnyJunk, and Pinterest through 2012.

snowclone memes image macro memes catchphrase memes backfire memes early 2010s memes

Overview

Every entry follows the same beat: line one names what someone talked you into (join the army, throw the ice, play with the lion cubs), and line two flatly repeats "it will be fun, they said" over a photo of the aftermath. The humor sits in the deadpan gap between the pitch and the payoff, and the caption sticks to the "X, they said" scaffold that TV Tropes catalogued in August 20102.

The rigid two-line format made it easy to copy, so contributors ran it on hobbies gone wrong, animal encounters that got out of hand, and chores that turned catastrophic like the original viking-helmet laundry shot5. Any bad decision plus a bad photograph works, which is why the format jumped platforms so fast.

Origin & Background

Platform
Facebook (origin photo) / Reddit (viral spread)
Date
2011

The verbal side of the joke predates the images by more than a decade. In Blizzard's real-time strategy game Warcraft 2, released December 9, 1995, human footmen delivered the line "'Join the army!' they said. 'See the world!' they said. I'd rather be sailing," and Relic's 2006 World War II title Company of Heroes gave its engineer squad the shorter closer "Join the army they said. It'll be fun they said"1. TV Tropes filed the pattern under "Join the Army, They Said" on August 7, 20102.

The image macro version arrived after Hurricane Irene struck the US East Coast on August 29, 2011. A Facebook photo of a man standing in his flooded laundry room wearing a viking helmet started circulating, and Reddit user ShivamJ, who said he knew the pictured man, dated the first captioned "Do the laundry they said / it will be fun, they said" post to September 20116.

How It Spread

By early 2012 the format was jumping between joke sites. On February 10, FunnyJunk user zidude posted "Throw the ice they said / it will be fun they said" alongside a photo of a child holding a bloodied chunk of snow; within eight months it cleared 630 upvotes and 41,000 views7. On April 8, Redditor Questmuncher332 submitted "Go kayaking they said. It'll be fun they said" to /r/funny with a shot of a kayaker being tailed by a shark3.

On April 23, developer Matthew Mihok pulled the template into a NASA Space Apps hackathon project, captioning his 3D sky explorer with "'Join the army,' they said! 'See the world.' they said! I'd rather be sailing the solar system"5. On May 30, Pinterest user wigimeg opened a "They Said" pinboard collecting entries8, and on June 1, Redditor Fiddloco's "Play with the lion cubs they said, it will be fun they said!" post to /r/aww hit over 15,800 upvotes and 700 comments in five months4.

How to Use This Meme

Pick something someone might oversell as harmless or exciting, then pair the setup line with a photo of it going badly. Line one typically reads "[verb the activity] they said," line two typically reads "it will be fun they said," with an optional third beat like "I'd rather be [somewhere else]" borrowed from the Warcraft 2 footman quote1. The photo carries the reveal, so the more visible the pain in the aftermath shot, the harder the joke lands.

Frequently Asked Questions