# Jar Jar Binks Jar Jar Binks debuted in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace on May 19, 1999 as a clumsy Gungan sidekick, and instantly drew a wave of fan hostility that made him one of the most mocked characters in film history[1]. Over the next two decades the backlash mutated into a full-blown internet meme, feeding death-edit videos on YouTube, a wildly upvoted Sith Lord conspiracy theory on Reddit, and an accidental cameo on the Drudge Report[2]. ## Origin Jar Jar Binks first appeared when Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace opened on May 19, 1999, introduced as a clumsy amphibious Gungan from Naboo who gets rescued by Jedi Knight Qui-Gon Jinn after being banished by his tribe[4]. George Lucas reportedly built the character as comic relief aimed at younger viewers, a choice fans rejected almost immediately; he was later voted the most annoying film character of all time in a 2006 poll[1]. He returned in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, most infamously delivering the Senate speech that hands Chancellor Palpatine emergency powers, an in-canon plot beat that fans still cite as the seed of the Darth Jar Jar theory[4]. The meme itself grew out of that hostility rather than any single post. Early YouTube uploads treating Jar Jar as raw material for jokes started appearing in the late 2000s, drawing on his exaggerated voice, physical comedy and unpopular reputation for source material[11]. - **Platform:** Film (Star Wars Episode I) / YouTube and Reddit (viral spread) - **Creator:** George Lucas (character); Unknown (meme) - **Date:** 1999 ## Overview The Jar Jar Binks meme is really three overlapping jokes that fans built on top of a character they could not stand. The oldest strand is straight mockery: fan-cut montages of his worst moments, edits where the Gungan finally dies on screen, and parody trailers that slot him into scenes where he never belonged[4]. The tone is usually cathartic rather than affectionate, treating him as a shared punching bag for anyone who felt burned by the prequel trilogy[1]. The second strand flipped the joke on its head with the Darth Jar Jar theory, which recast the bumbling sidekick as a hidden Sith mastermind manipulating events across all three prequels[4]. That reading produced elaborate essay-length breakdowns, YouTube explainers, and a small industry of ironic edits pairing menacing music with clumsy pratfalls. A third strand arrived in February 2017 when the Drudge Report ran a doctored Iran missile photo with Jar Jar Photoshopped into the smoke, giving him a new life as an accidental photobomb icon[2][3]. What holds these variants together is that Jar Jar is treated less like a Star Wars character and more like an anti-mascot. He shows up wherever internet users want to signal 'this is bad,' 'this is a joke,' or 'this is secretly deeper than it looks,' which is why the meme has stayed alive across nearly three decades of Star Wars discourse. ## How It Spread On March 31, 2011, the comedy channel Improv Everywhere posted a staged prank in which a man wearing a Jar Jar Binks mask is assaulted on a New York subway, one of the earliest viral videos to weaponize his likeness for laughs[4]. On February 16, 2013, YouTuber Tim Fryer uploaded 'The Worst of Jar Jar Binks,' a montage scored to the Trololo song that helped set the template for later hate compilations[5]. Later that year, YouTuber withmorten2 posted an edited Phantom Menace clip in which Binks appears to die, a video that pulled more than 2.8 million views and over 3,200 comments within three years[6]. In April 2015, YouTuber murdockmotion released a parody trailer titled 'Star Wars: The Binks Awakens' that racked up 1.6 million views and roughly 770 comments over eight months[7]. The biggest single jump came on October 30, 2015, when Redditor Lumpawarroo posted a long theory to r/StarWars arguing that Jar Jar was a trained Force user and secret Sith collaborator working alongside Darth Sidious[4]. The thread pulled over 37,000 upvotes at 98% approval and more than 6,500 comments within two months, and a wave of YouTube explainer videos pushed the theory well beyond Reddit[8]. On December 7, 2015, Force Awakens producer Kathleen Kennedy shut the door at a press conference, telling reporters flatly, 'Jar Jar is definitely not in the movie,' to applause and cheers[1]. The Drudge Report chapter arrived on February 2, 2017. The site paired the headline 'Iran Rattles' with a doctored image of dozens of missiles launching over the horizon, apparently unaware that Jar Jar Binks was Photoshopped between the smoke trails[2]. The Verge and Gizmodo both traced the picture back to a 2008 post on the blog 'What The Crap' that had been mocking an earlier Iranian government fake, and noted that the Jar Jar version had been circulating widely enough to fool Iran's state-linked Mehr News Agency in 2012[3][2]. ## How to Use Most Jar Jar Binks memes fall into one of three patterns. Hate edits typically pull his worst prequel moments into short compilations, sometimes swapping the audio for absurd music like Trololo, and the payoff is usually cathartic rather than clever[5]. Death edits recut existing footage so Jar Jar appears to be killed off, which is often used as a punchline in reply to any Star Wars complaint[6]. Sith-theory posts go the opposite direction: they treat him as a hidden villain and overlay ominous music or slow zooms on otherwise silly scenes to sell the joke[4]. The Drudge Report incident also made 'find Jar Jar' style photobomb edits common, where he is quietly Photoshopped into news images, screenshots or historical photos and the joke is spotting him[3]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Jar Jar Binks? Jar Jar Binks is a clumsy Gungan character introduced in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace in 1999, who became one of the most mocked figures in the franchise and eventually a long-running internet meme[1]. ### Where did Jar Jar Binks come from? The character was created by George Lucas and first appeared on May 19, 1999 in The Phantom Menace; the meme grew from years of fan backlash on YouTube and Reddit[4]. ### What does Jar Jar Binks mean as a meme? He is used as shorthand for something widely disliked or as the punchline in fan-cut death edits, mock trailers, and the Sith-theory posts that recast him as a hidden villain[4]. ### How do you use Jar Jar Binks in a meme? Common formats include YouTube hate compilations, edited clips where he appears to die, ironic Darth Jar Jar breakdowns, and Photoshop jobs that sneak him into unrelated images the way the Drudge Report accidentally did[2]. ### Is Jar Jar Binks still popular? He is still a fixture of Star Wars meme culture, with the Sith theory and the Drudge Report photo still circulating years after they first appeared[3]. ### What is the Darth Jar Jar theory? It is a Reddit fan theory posted by user Lumpawarroo on October 30, 2015, arguing that Jar Jar was a trained Force user secretly collaborating with Darth Sidious across the prequel trilogy[4]. ### Why was Jar Jar Binks on the Drudge Report? On February 2, 2017, the site used a doctored Iran missile photo that had Jar Jar Photoshopped into the smoke, a picture originally made in 2008 as a joke on the blog 'What The Crap'[2]. ### Did Jar Jar Binks appear in The Force Awakens? No. Producer Kathleen Kennedy confirmed at a press conference on December 7, 2015 that 'Jar Jar is definitely not in the movie'[1]. ### What movies did Jar Jar Binks appear in? He appears in all three Star Wars prequel films: The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith, where he delivers the Senate speech granting Palpatine emergency powers[4]. ### Why do people hate Jar Jar Binks? Fans found the character grating and childish, and critics accused the design of drawing on racial caricature; a 2006 poll named him the most annoying film character of all time[1]. ## References 1. [https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/dec/07/star-wars-producer-confirms-jar-jar-binks-will-not-appear-in-the-force-awakens]() 2. [https://gizmodo.com/drudge-report-stokes-iran-fears-with-fake-missile-photo-1791918585]() 3. [https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/2/14485494/drudge-report-jar-jar-binks-failed-iran-missile-photoshop]() 4. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/jar-jar-binks]() 5. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTUkoYorBxg]() 6. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jmF900DHKk]() 7. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLACxMXBRhM]() 8. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFu_dxwU-sk]() 9. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLcCeg4gI0M]() 10. [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Jar%20Jar%20Binks]() 11. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPJy0HTRD4s]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/jar-jar-binks Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library