Lie Down / Try Not to Cry / Cry a Lot is an exploitable comic showing a man curled in the fetal position under the phrase 'Lie Down. Try Not to Cry. Cry a Lot.,' used to signal exaggerated sadness[1].

Where did Lie Down come from?

It first appeared as one panel in the CollegeHumor article 'Realistic Gym Workout Diagrams,' published on September 10, 2010[1], drawn by CollegeHumor artist Caldwell Tanner[3].

What does Lie Down mean?

It expresses over-the-top grief at a fictional event or emotional post, treating crying as a three-step workout routine to be followed[2].

How do you use Lie Down?

People either edit the fetal-position figure into a character from a fandom mourning a scene or death[2], or drop the unedited comic under a sad or heartwarming image as a reaction[4].

Is Lie Down still popular?

The format saw its heaviest use between 2012 and 2017, with Memecenter listing over 9,400 tagged uploads by August 2017 and heavy reblog activity on Tumblr[5][6].

Lie Down

2010exploitable comicclassic

Published September 5, 2026

Lie Down / Try Not to Cry / Cry a Lot started as a joke workout poster in a 2010 CollegeHumor article about parody gym diagrams. By late 2012, internet users were editing the fetal-position drawing into pop culture scenes and pairing the phrase with sad news, turning a one-off gag into a durable reaction template for online grief.

reaction memes exploitable templates catchphrase memes fandom discourse memes delayed virality memes

Overview

The format usually pairs Caldwell Tanner's simple line drawing of a man curled into a fetal ball with the three-step instruction 'Lie Down. Try Not to Cry. Cry a Lot.'1 Editors swap the crying figure for cartoon characters, actors, or fictional heroes to signal that a scene, series finale, or character death has wrecked them emotionally2. The comic also travels unaltered as a reaction image, stacked below a heartwarming or devastating post to caption the reader's response4.

The tone rides the line between mock melodrama and sincere sadness. Common variants target series endings, character deaths, and fandom disappointments, from anime episodes to season finales5. The drawing is spare enough that even minor edits, such as swapping the head or dropping in a background, read instantly as the same joke.

Origin & Background

Platform

CollegeHumor (source), Tumblr (viral spread)

Creator

Caldwell Tanner

Date

2010

On September 10, 2010, CollegeHumor published 'Realistic Gym Workout Diagrams,' a set of parody posters spoofing gym instructional signage1. One panel showed a man in the fetal position with the caption 'Lie Down. Try Not to Cry. Cry a Lot.,' and the illustration was later credited to CollegeHumor artist Caldwell Tanner3. The panel sat mostly quiet for two years before it started spreading on its own as an exploitable4.

How It Spread

Standalone edits of the fetal-position drawing began circulating in late 2012, when users started swapping the figure's identity to match specific fandoms and losses4. On March 5, 2013, the entertainment site Mandatory compiled several of these edits into a roundup post titled 'Lie Down. Try Not to Cry. Cry a Lot. An Emotional Meme Collection,' giving the format wider visibility outside imageboards2.

The meme kept a long tail on Tumblr, where reblog culture rewarded reaction images that could sit at the bottom of an emotionally loaded post6. Memecenter counted more than 9,400 uploads under the 'Lie Down Try Not To Cry Cry A Lot' tag by August 2017, though not every entry uses the original comic5. Even years after Tanner's drawing first appeared, the phrase kept surfacing in fandom threads whenever a beloved character died or a show wrapped4.

How to Use This Meme

Typical edits keep the three-line 'Lie Down. Try Not to Cry. Cry a Lot.' caption above Tanner's fetal-position figure and replace the crying character with whoever is meant to be devastated, often a fandom stand-in for the poster2. A common convention is to use the unedited comic as a bottom-panel reaction to a sad or heartwarming image, letting the drawing do the emoting4.

Frequently Asked Questions

References (6)