What is Julian Assange?

He's the Australian journalist who founded WikiLeaks in 2006 and became a long-running internet figure through his standoff at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

Where did Julian Assange come from?

He first hit mainstream attention in April 2010 when WikiLeaks published the Collateral Murder video of a U.S. helicopter strike in Baghdad.

What does Julian Assange mean?

Online he functions as a shorthand for whistleblowing and press-freedom fights, with imagery pulled from his 2019 arrest and the earlier #ReconnectJulian campaign.

How do you use Julian Assange?

The bearded 2019 arrest still and Ruptly's video of him being carried out of the embassy are the standard visuals, usually captioned around press freedom or government overreach.

Is Julian Assange still popular?

He's a classic internet-activism figure whose imagery is still recycled whenever WikiLeaks or press-freedom stories surface, though the peak moments were the 2016-2019 embassy period.

Julian Assange

2010viral figureclassic

Published September 2, 2026

Julian Assange is the Australian WikiLeaks founder who became a recurring internet folk figure after the 2010 Collateral Murder release turned him into a global activist symbol. His seven-year confinement at the Ecuadorian embassy in London spawned campaigns like #ReconnectJulian and #WhereIsAssange, and his 2019 arrest footage spread everywhere as reaction imagery.

hashtag memes political satire memes conspiracy memes protest memes unwilling celebrity memes

Overview

Julian Assange's meme presence isn't built on a single template. It's a stack of hashtags, reaction images and viral clips that piled up during his years-long standoff with Western governments while holed up inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London1. The two moments that get recycled the most are the disheveled, long-bearded stills from his April 2019 arrest and the Ruptly video of British police dragging him out of the embassy, which spread across Twitter within minutes of the raid2.

Around those images, supporters built rallying-cry hashtags like #ReconnectJulian and #WhereIsAssange whenever his internet was cut or he dropped out of public view3. The tone splits sharply along political lines. Free-press activists post him as a martyr figure, opponents post him as a punchline, and the same courtroom sketch or arrest still gets captioned both ways within the same thread3.

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Origin & Background

Platform

WikiLeaks / Twitter (viral spread)

Date

2010

WikiLeaks was launched in December 2006 as a non-profit under Assange's directorship, and by its first anniversary the site claimed a database of over 1.2 million documents3. His international profile jumped in April 2010, when WikiLeaks published Collateral Murder, a 39-minute clip of a U.S. Apache helicopter strike in New Baghdad that killed Iraqi civilians and two Reuters journalists4. The footage set off a public argument about war conduct and whistleblowing that made Assange a household name online.

Later in 2010, WikiLeaks released more than 200,000 U.S. diplomatic cables, triggering financial blockades from Amazon, Mastercard and PayPal3. Anonymous responded with a DDoS campaign called Operation Avenge Assange, which is where Assange first crossed over from news subject into full internet-culture figure3.

How It Spread

On October 17, 2016, the @Wikileaks Twitter account said Assange's internet link at the embassy had been 'intentionally severed by a state party' after the release of Hillary Clinton's Goldman Sachs speech transcripts, and #WhereIsAssange took off as supporters lost contact with him3. A dedicated subreddit, r/WhereIsAssange, formed around the same speculation and grew past 3,600 subscribers3.

When Ecuador cut his internet a second time on March 28, 2018, Kim Dotcom kicked off #ReconnectJulian with a tweet calling for protesters to gather outside the London embassy, and Oliver Stone quickly joined in with his own 'Free Assange' post3. The hashtag stayed a recurring rallying tag for the next year.

The biggest single viral moment came on April 11, 2019, when the Metropolitan Police entered the embassy and carried Assange out. Ruptly's arrest video hit Twitter within minutes and was reshared across every major platform2. Edward Snowden's post calling it 'a dark moment for press freedom' and Pamela Anderson's tirade against Ecuador, the UK and Donald Trump gave the clip a second wave of reach, and the bearded arrest still became one of the most reused reaction images of that week3.

How to Use This Meme

The two go-to visuals are the 2019 arrest photo of a bearded Assange being carried out of the embassy and the Ruptly video clip of the same moment2. People typically pair them with captions about press freedom, government overreach, or, from the other direction, jokes about his hygiene during the embassy years3. On Twitter and Reddit, tags like #WhereIsAssange and #ReconnectJulian are still used whenever he goes quiet or a WikiLeaks-related story breaks3.