What is Jetstream Sam?

Jetstream Sam, real name Samuel Rodrigues, is a Brazilian cyborg swordsman and antagonist in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance who inspired years of fan art, ironic edits and boss-fight tribute videos.

Where did Jetstream Sam come from?

He debuted in the 2013 PlatinumGames title Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, and his boss battle with Raiden was popularized through gameplay uploads like LegendaryPeelz's February 22nd, 2013 video.

What does Jetstream Sam mean?

Online, the name points to the character and the ecosystem of MGRR memes around him, especially bait-and-switch edits set to "The Only Thing I Know For Real" and jokes about him slicing random targets in half.

How do you use Jetstream Sam?

People typically drop clips of the Raiden boss fight into ironic edits or draw Sam mid-swing over a pop-culture victim, as with @subakeye's viral Stuart Little illustration from September 2021.

Is Jetstream Sam still popular?

He is a classic MGRR meme staple, with iFunny's "jetstreamsam" tag and posts like Konpaku_Shitposting's February 2022 macro keeping the character in heavy circulation through the early 2020s.

Jetstream Sam

2013character memeclassic

Published August 14, 2026

Jetstream Sam is a cyborg swordsman antagonist from the 2013 video game Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance whose flashy sword duels and quotable one-liners fueled a wave of fan art and ironic edits, especially in early 2022 across iFunny and Twitter.

metal gear memes gaming villain memes boss fight memes video game music memes

Overview

Jetstream Sam, also known as Samuel Rodrigues, is a Brazilian cyborg mercenary and swordsman who serves as a major antagonist in the 2013 hack-and-slash game Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance1. He fights with a high-frequency katana passed down from his father, wears a red scarf and dark sunglasses, and is sometimes shown alongside the wolf-shaped combat drone LQ-84i, better known as Blade Wolf4.

Online, Sam is a fixture of Metal Gear Rising fan art and shitposts that lean on his good looks, dramatic swordsmanship and quotable boss-fight dialogue4. Starting in early 2022, he showed up heavily in ironic edits and bait-and-switch videos scored to the game track "The Only Thing I Know For Real / There Will Be Bloodshed"4.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (source) / iFunny and Twitter (viral spread)

Creator

Konami / Kojima Productions; meme spread is anonymous

Date

2013

The character debuted when Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance shipped in February 2013, developed by PlatinumGames and published by Konami. In the story, Sam is hired by World Marshal executive Steven Armstrong after cutting through several cartels, loses his right hand to Armstrong in a duel, and joins the company with a prosthetic arm6.

Sam's boss fight against protagonist Raiden is what pushed him into meme territory. On February 22nd, 2013, YouTuber LegendaryPeelz uploaded a full gameplay recording of the Raiden vs. Sam duel, which pulled in over 4.3 million views over the following years and became the go-to clip source for later edits1.

How It Spread

Fan art and reaction images built up slowly through the 2010s, but the character's meme presence sharpened in 2021. On May 20th, 2021, Tumblr user boyfromtazmily posted a looping GIF of Sam clapping with the caption "CRYPTOCURRENCY IS DYING REPOST THIS TO MAKE IT DIE FASTER," collecting more than 44,900 notes within ten months4.

A few months later, on September 4th, 2021, Twitter user @subakeye posted an illustration of Jetstream Sam standing over a bisected Stuart Little, which pulled in around 29,600 likes and 6,500 retweets over the next half year4. The image cemented a running joke of Sam absurdly slicing unlikely pop-culture figures in half.

iFunny drove the biggest surge in early 2022, where posts under the "jetstreamsam" tag pushed the character into daily rotation5. On February 25th, 2022, iFunny user Konpaku_Shitposting posted an image macro tying a GIF of Sam mowing down enemies to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, racking up over 9,400 smiles in six days5.

How to Use This Meme

The meme template is typically a short clip or GIF from the Raiden vs. Sam boss fight, often paired with the track "The Only Thing I Know For Real / There Will Be Bloodshed"4. A common convention is the bait-and-switch edit: a calm intro cuts hard to Sam drawing his katana at the song's beat drop. Illustrators also drop Sam into unrelated pop-culture scenes, usually mid-swing, as with the @subakeye Stuart Little piece4.