John Mulaney memes typically take short, self-contained lines from his stand-up specials and pair them with unrelated images or scene captures, treating the audio as a quotable script instead of a joke to retell3. Common formats include text overlays on reaction shots, screencaps of his facial expressions mid-bit, and edits that sync his delivery to cartoon footage or video game clips1. The Salt and Pepper Diner story, in which he and a friend loaded a diner jukebox with 'What's New Pussycat?' broken up by one play of Tom Jones' 'It's Not Unusual,' turned into a stand-alone reference used far beyond his own fanbase2.

His writing tenure on Saturday Night Live from 2008 through 2013 fed the same audience, since he co-created the Stefon character with Bill Hader and wrote for Weekend Update3. Fans on Tumblr circulated GIF sets from those SNL bits alongside stand-up clips, giving the material a longer half-life than most late-night writing and producing Drakeposting parodies that swap Drake for a Mulaney reaction shot3.

The common convention is to lift a short line from a Mulaney bit, usually five to fifteen words, and place it over an unrelated image or scene, treating the quote as a caption rather than the joke itself. Reaction sets often use a still of his face mid-delivery from one of the Netflix specials. For audio edits, creators typically sync the punchline to a cartoon or video game clip that matches the tone of the line.