Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) — KFC logo with Colonel Sanders portrait in red, white, and navy blue

Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC)

1930brand parodysemi-active

Published September 3, 2026

Kentucky Fried Chicken, the fast food chain founded by Colonel Harland Sanders in the 1930s, became a recurring subject of internet humor through logo parodies, celebrity Colonel impersonations, and its unfortunate entanglement with racial stereotypes. The brand's distinctive imagery and controversial cultural associations spawned decades of memes ranging from DeviantArt logo edits to commentary on the fried chicken stereotype.

fast food memes advertising memes deviantart memes race and identity memes

Overview

KFC memes typically fall into three categories: logo parodies, celebrity Colonel Sanders impersonations, and commentary on racial stereotypes involving fried chicken. The company's distinctive red and white branding, featuring the smiling face of founder Colonel Harland Sanders, has made it a prime target for image manipulation. DeviantArt became a hub for these logo edits, with searches yielding hundreds of creative reinterpretations2.

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The celebrity Colonel campaigns launched by KFC in the 2010s added another dimension to the meme landscape. When Reba McEntire became the first female Colonel Sanders in 2018, the internet took notice of what The A.V. Club called shattering "the grease-soaked napkin ceiling"4. This followed appearances by comedians and actors including Darrell Hammond, Norm MacDonald, Rob Lowe, and Billy Zane4. The rotating cast of celebrity Colonels became its own source of online humor.

The brand also carries a more uncomfortable legacy in meme culture: its association with racist stereotypes about Black Americans and fried chicken. This stereotype has deep historical roots and surfaces periodically in viral moments, from golfer Sergio Garcia's comments about Tiger Woods to various online posts that circulate the trope1.

Origin & Background

Platform
Multiple / DeviantArt (logo edits)
Date
1930

Kentucky Fried Chicken was founded by Harland Sanders during the Great Depression of the 1930s3. Sanders, whose image still serves as the company logo, built the chain before selling it to PepsiCo3. The real Colonel had a famously cantankerous relationship with his former company. According to reports, he would randomly show up at franchises and throw food on the floor when dissatisfied, and went to his grave denouncing the company's gravy as "wallpaper paste"4.

The fried chicken and Black Americans stereotype that KFC sometimes gets swept into has origins predating the internet entirely. Professor Claire Schmidt of the University of Missouri traces its codification to D.W. Griffith's 1915 film Birth of a Nation, which depicted Black legislators eating fried chicken in a crude, racist scene designed to argue against Black voting rights1. While chickens had practical value for enslaved people as cheap protein sources, the film transformed this into a degrading caricature that persists in various forms online1.

How It Spread

KFC's presence in meme culture grew alongside the rise of image editing communities in the 2000s. DeviantArt became a repository for logo parodies, accumulating over 200 results for "KFC logo" searches2. These edits ranged from simple color swaps to elaborate mashups with other franchises and pop culture properties.

The celebrity Colonel campaigns generated fresh meme material starting in the mid-2010s. Each new celebrity announcement sparked social media discussion, with Reba McEntire's 2018 appointment drawing particular attention for breaking the gender barrier34. KFC's official Twitter account leaned into the absurdist humor, posting cryptic promotional content that played on the Colonel's mysterious persona.

Controversial moments involving the fried chicken stereotype continued to generate viral attention. In 2013, golfer Sergio Garcia sparked outrage when he joked about serving Tiger Woods fried chicken, a comment Woods called "wrong, hurtful and clearly inappropriate"1. This was notably not even the first time a professional golfer had made such a joke about Woods1. These incidents periodically resurface in online discussions about racism and stereotypes, keeping KFC adjacent to uncomfortable cultural conversations.

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