Kermit Looking Out Window

2016Reaction imagesemi-active

Published March 10, 2026 · Updated March 17, 2026

Also known as: Sad Kermit · Kermit Window · Window Kermit

Kermit Looking Out Window is a reaction image meme featuring a small Kermit the Frog plush toy sitting on a windowsill with rain droplets on the glass, looking sad and contemplative. The photos were taken by Finnish teenager Pinja Savolainen in September 2016 and went viral that December after Twitter user @JonnySun helped spread them. The image became a go-to reaction for expressing melancholy, loneliness, and resigned sadness online.

feels culture memesmuppets memespuppet character memessuppressed emotion memeschildrens media memes

Overview

The meme uses a photograph of a small Kermit the Frog plush doll positioned on a windowsill. Rain or condensation is visible on the glass behind Kermit, and the background is blurred, giving the whole image a melancholic atmosphere1. The doll's posture and the rainy setting make it look like Kermit is gazing outside while deep in thought, wallowing in sadness, or reflecting on life's disappointments.

People use the Kermit Looking Out Window image as a reaction to situations involving loneliness, boredom, heartbreak, or general existential dread. It works particularly well as a mood image for scenarios like waiting for someone who won't text back, watching friends go out while staying home, or just having a rough day. The format is simple: pair the image with a caption describing whatever situation is making you feel like a sad frog staring at the rain1.

The meme belongs to a larger family of Kermit the Frog memes that took over the internet in the mid-2010s. Kermit the Frog, created by Jim Henson in 1955 for his local TV series *Sam and Friends*, became one of pop culture's most recognizable characters through *The Muppet Show* and *Sesame Street*3. But online, Kermit's various expressions and poses turned him into one of the most versatile meme subjects on the internet2.

The Kermit doll belonged to the mother of Pinja Savolainen, a 17-year-old from Finland, who found it at a market years earlier. One day in September 2016, Savolainen walked past the doll sitting in her kitchen and decided to photograph it and share the results with her Twitter followers. "It was originally meant to be just a little joke, but then I realized it was actually pretty fun to photograph him so I decided to make it into a thread," Savolainen told BuzzFeed News.

Her first tweet featuring the Kermit doll went out on September 6, 2016. She posed the plush in various sad and relatable situations, including one where Kermit sits at a windowsill looking out at the rain. Random ideas kept coming to her, and each one shaped a new scenario for the doll. The thread picked up attention among her followers but didn't immediately go mainstream.

Origin & Background

Platform
Twitter (source photos), Twitter (viral spread)
Key People
Pinja Savolainen, Jonathan Sun / @JonnySun
Date
2016

The Kermit doll belonged to the mother of Pinja Savolainen, a 17-year-old from Finland, who found it at a market years earlier. One day in September 2016, Savolainen walked past the doll sitting in her kitchen and decided to photograph it and share the results with her Twitter followers. "It was originally meant to be just a little joke, but then I realized it was actually pretty fun to photograph him so I decided to make it into a thread," Savolainen told BuzzFeed News.

Her first tweet featuring the Kermit doll went out on September 6, 2016. She posed the plush in various sad and relatable situations, including one where Kermit sits at a windowsill looking out at the rain. Random ideas kept coming to her, and each one shaped a new scenario for the doll. The thread picked up attention among her followers but didn't immediately go mainstream.

How It Spread

The Kermit window photos blew up in December 2016, when Jonathan Sun (@JonnySun), a doctoral student at MIT with over 400,000 Twitter followers, came across the images. Sun, who had spoken openly about his own struggles with depression and anxiety, saw something relatable in the sad little frog.

On December 13, 2016, Sun tweeted the Kermit image and challenged his followers to turn the "Sad Kermit" into a "wholesome meme" by adding positive and encouraging captions instead of dark or sarcastic ones. The challenge took off. Hundreds of users posted their own versions, mixing sad and hopeful takes on the little plush. BuzzFeed covered the viral moment, describing how Twitter "turned this sad Kermit into an emotional roller coaster no one asked for".

The wholesome Kermit challenge landed during a period when internet users were hungry for positivity. The 2016 U.S. presidential election had left social media feeling unusually hostile, and wholesome memes were gaining momentum as a counter-movement. Reddit's r/WholesomeMemes forum attracted over half a million subscribers in this period, and Sad Kermit became one of the trend's early symbols.

BuzzFeed News reporter Tanya Chen tracked down Savolainen as the original creator. When asked about seeing her Kermit photos used for jokes on Instagram with thousands of interactions, Savolainen said "It makes me feel very happy that people find my memes useful". Sun himself told BuzzFeed he didn't know who made the original photos and had assumed it was a "classic meme".

The Kermit Looking Out Window image spread across Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and later TikTok, where it found new life as a reaction image and video overlay1. Multiple meme generator sites including Imgflip and Kapwing added dedicated templates for the format1. The image's emotional range made it adaptable: it worked for genuinely sad posts, ironic self-pity, and everything in between.

Platforms

TwitterRedditTwitter
View on Google Trends

How to Use This Meme

The Kermit Looking Out Window format is straightforward:

1

Start with a relatable sad or disappointing situation. This is typically presented as the caption or top text.

2

Pair it with the image of Kermit on the windowsill. The rain-streaked glass does most of the emotional heavy lifting.

3

The tone is usually wistful, self-deprecating, or darkly funny. Think "when all your friends are at the party but you said you were tired" or "when you check your bank account after the weekend."

Create Your Own

Cultural Impact

Sad Kermit arrived at a turning point in meme culture. The December 2016 wholesome meme wave, which JonnySun's challenge helped kick off, marked a visible shift in internet humor toward more earnest, kind-spirited content. TIME magazine covered the trend in 2017, noting how the internet was "getting a little nicer, one meme at a time," with Sad Kermit as a key example.

The meme also added to Kermit the Frog's already impressive meme portfolio. By late 2016, Kermit had starred in at least three major meme formats: "But That's None of My Business" (Kermit Sipping Tea) from 2014, Evil Kermit from November 2016, and now Sad Kermit2. No other puppet character has generated this many separate viral formats. Kermit impressions also became popular in online gaming voice chat, adding another layer to his internet presence2.

The image's staying power comes from its simplicity. Unlike memes that require specific cultural knowledge to understand, a sad frog looking out a rainy window communicates instantly. The template still circulates on TikTok and Instagram, often resurfacing during collective moments of sadness or seasonal mood shifts.

Fun Facts

The Kermit doll that launched the meme was a random market find by Savolainen's mother in Finland. It wasn't an official Muppets product with any special provenance.

Kermit the Frog was originally built from a discarded turquoise spring coat belonging to Jim Henson's mother and two ping pong balls for eyes in 19553.

JonnySun (Jonathan Sun) went on to write a book called *everyone's a aliebn when ur a aliebn too* and became known as one of Twitter's most prominent voices for mental health awareness.

The "Kermit Window" template on Imgflip (template ID 36698509) is one of several competing Kermit window templates on the site, each using slightly different angles of the same plush1.

Kermit didn't officially become a frog until the late 1960s. He started as a vague lizard-like creature on *Sam and Friends* in 19553.

Derivatives & Variations

Kermit Looking Out Window Variations

Different takes on the Kermit Looking Out Window format with modified content

(2020)

Kermit Looking Out Window Mashups

Combinations of Kermit Looking Out Window with other popular memes

(2021)

Kermit Looking Out Window Remixes

Updated versions with current events and references

(2021)

Frequently Asked Questions