# It Will Be Fun, They Said 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. ## Origin 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, 2010[2]. 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 2011[6]. - **Platform:** Facebook (origin photo) / Reddit (viral spread) - **Creator:** Unknown - **Date:** 2011 ## 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 2010[2]. 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 shot[5]. Any bad decision plus a bad photograph works, which is why the format jumped platforms so fast. ## 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 views[7]. 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 shark[3]. 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 entries[8], 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 months[4]. ## How to Use 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 quote[1]. The photo carries the reveal, so the more visible the pain in the aftermath shot, the harder the joke lands. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is It Will Be Fun, They Said? It's a snowclone image macro that pairs a two-line caption, "[X] they said / it will be fun they said," with a photo of the activity going wrong[5]. ### Where did It Will Be Fun, They Said come from? The "X, they said" phrasing traces to Warcraft 2 in 1995 and Company of Heroes in 2006, and the image macro started with a post-Hurricane Irene laundry room photo in September 2011[1][6]. ### What does It Will Be Fun, They Said mean? It's sarcastic. The speaker mocks whoever talked them into a bad idea, and the paired photo shows why it was a bad idea[2]. ### How do you use It Will Be Fun, They Said? Write "[verb the activity] they said / it will be fun they said" and attach a photo of the aftermath, like a shark chasing a kayaker or lion cubs pinning down a tourist[3][4]. ### Is It Will Be Fun, They Said still popular? It's treated as a classic snowclone from the early 2010s meme era, with its peak run from 2011 through 2012 across Reddit, FunnyJunk, and Pinterest[7][8]. ## References 1. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBQvyHmhLRU]() 2. [https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JoinTheArmyTheySaid]() 3. [https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/]() 4. [https://www.reddit.com/r/aww/]() 5. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/it-will-be-fun-they-said]() 6. [https://www.reddit.com/user/ShivamJ/]() 7. [https://funnyjunk.com/]() 8. [https://www.pinterest.com/wigimeg/]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/it-will-be-fun-they-said Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library