The meme centers on a photograph of the first two paragraphs of a purposely awful philosophy essay titled "Mario, the Idea vs. Mario, the Man." The essay is formatted to look like a graded college paper, covered in a professor's red-pen annotations expressing increasing frustration and confusion1. The paper opens with the line "Everyone knows Mario is cool as fuck" (annotated as "horrible opening" by the professor) and goes downhill from there, referring to Koopas as "turtles," "turts," and eventually "turty"2.

What makes the essay instantly recognizable is Jamesson's repeated, incorrect use of the word "perchance" at random intervals. The professor's note on the first instance reads "You can't just say 'perchance,'" which became one of the most quoted lines from the meme1. The essay receives a comically oversized "F" grade1.

The meme gets used in a few different ways:

- Quoting directly: Drop "perchance" into any statement where it makes no sense. The humor comes from the word's misplacement. Example: "I'm going to get lunch. Perchance." - Professor's red pen format: Write an obviously bad take or statement and annotate it with mock professor comments like "You can't just say 'perchance'" or strings of question marks. - "Everyone knows X is cool as fuck": Swap Mario for any subject to open a faux-philosophical analysis. Often paired with the professor's "horrible opening" note. - Voiceover readings: Record a dramatic reading of the essay or write an original essay in the same style, complete with red-pen corrections. - Turty/turts vocabulary: Reference Koopas or turtles using Jamesson's escalating nicknames in any Mario-related discussion.

The template typically works best when the writer commits fully to the style: pseudo-intellectual tone, random non sequiturs, and a single word or phrase repeated incorrectly throughout1.