# John Wick Reloading John Wick Reloading is a reaction image pulled from the 2016 trailer for John Wick: Chapter 2, showing Keanu Reeves grimly slotting a magazine into a Glock 17. After sitting mostly unused on Reddit for over a year, it exploded in February 2019 and became the go-to shorthand for pending vengeance, especially anything involving harm to a dog. ## Origin The source material dropped on October 8th, 2016, when Lionsgate released the first trailer for John Wick: Chapter 2 on YouTube, featuring the scene of Reeves reloading his pistol[1]. That same day, a still from the shot was archived on the Internet Movie Firearms Database as part of the film's weapon rundown[2]. On February 10th, 2017, the day Chapter 2 hit theaters, the firearms outlet Range365 reused the image in an article breaking down the guns of the sequel[3]. The first known meme use came on June 9th, 2017, when Redditor AlojaFreunde posted the image to r/pics, where it pulled in more than 660 upvotes over the following six months[4]. - **Platform:** YouTube (source) / Reddit (viral spread) - **Creator:** Unknown - **Date:** 2016 ## Overview The image is a single frame lifted from the first John Wick: Chapter 2 trailer, showing Keanu Reeves in a black suit, jaw set, sliding a magazine into a Glock 17[1]. Its appeal is entirely in the face and the gesture: no dialogue, no context, just a man visibly deciding that someone is about to have a very bad day. Redditors typically pair the still with a two-panel or captioned setup where the top text describes some minor grievance or, more often, cruelty toward an animal, and the image is the punchline: John Wick is loading up to handle it personally[4]. The joke leans directly on the plot of the first John Wick film, where the assassin comes out of retirement after thugs kill his puppy, which is why so many versions of the format are specifically about dog abuse[6]. ## How It Spread Reposts moved fast across Reddit's larger subs. On June 14th, 2017, the picture landed on r/funny and cleared 3,300 upvotes, and a later crosspost to r/memes racked up over 40,500 upvotes in six months[5]. Even with those numbers, it stayed a fairly niche reaction for the next year and a half. The format broke wide in February 2019. On February 13th, Redditor concealed_weapon posted a John Wick Reloading meme to r/me_irl that pulled 2,400 upvotes, and a repost to r/memes hit more than 19,500 upvotes in the same window[7]. A follow-up post captioned about a dog's death drove the vengeance angle even harder on the same subreddit[8]. Within weeks, r/dankmemes picked it up and started running variations on the template, including entries built around euthanizing bad behavior and calls to take action against wrongdoers[9][10]. ## How to Use The template is typically a two-panel or top-caption layout. Set up a specific offense in the caption, often something involving mistreatment of a pet, a petty inconvenience played straight, or a fandom-level grievance, then drop the John Wick Reloading still as the response. A common convention is to keep the caption short and let the image carry the threat, since the Chapter 1 dog-revenge backstory does most of the comedic work[6]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is John Wick Reloading? It's a reaction image of Keanu Reeves as John Wick calmly reloading a Glock 17, used online to signal payback or annoyance, especially over dog abuse[4]. ### Where did John Wick Reloading come from? The frame comes from the first trailer for John Wick: Chapter 2, released on YouTube on October 8th, 2016[1]. ### What does John Wick Reloading mean? It signals that the poster is fed up and ready for vengeance, riffing on the first film's plot where Wick hunts down the men who killed his puppy[6]. ### How do you use John Wick Reloading? Pair a caption describing an offense, often harm to an animal, with the reloading still as the wordless response, a format popularized on r/dankmemes in 2019[9]. ### Is John Wick Reloading still popular? It's a classic Reddit reaction that saw its biggest surge in early 2019 across r/me_irl, r/memes, and r/dankmemes and is still recognized in reaction rotations[7][10]. ## References 1. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGk2EfbD_Ps]() 2. [http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/John_Wick:_Chapter_2]() 3. [https://www.range365.com/guns-john-wick-chapter-2/]() 4. [https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/6g8lyl/revenge/]() 5. [https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/6h6t4h/puppy_wick/]() 6. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/john-wick-reloading]() 7. [https://www.reddit.com/r/me_irl/comments/aqcgg7/me_irl/]() 8. [https://www.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/aqm8ne/this_put_a_hole_in_my_heart/]() 9. [https://www.reddit.com/r/dankmemes/comments/arg9wp/time_to_euthanize/]() 10. [https://www.reddit.com/r/dankmemes/comments/asqh07/we_must_take_action/]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/john-wick-reloading Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library