# Me When The Race War Starts And I Gotta Kill X
Me When The Race War Starts And I Gotta Kill X is a phrasal template meme where a Black user jokingly names a beloved white celebrity they would hesitate to shoot in an imagined race war. It started on Twitter in February 2017 and hit peak virality when skater Tony Hawk replied to a version starring himself in 2022.
## Overview
Me When The Race War Starts And I Gotta Kill X is a phrasal template built around a screencap of Wesley Snipes crying while aiming a handgun, taken from the 1991 crime film New Jack City[1]. Posters fill in the X with a white celebrity they claim to genuinely love, framing the joke as reluctant sorrow over having to shoot that person once the hypothetical race war kicks off. The visual gag lands because Snipes' anguished face reads as real grief in the still, so pairing it with wildly low-stakes targets like Michael Cera or Paramore flips the tone into absurd affection[2].
A second common variant swaps the Snipes image for the GIF of Jesse Pinkman shakily pointing a pistol in Breaking Bad, keeping the identical caption structure[3]. Whichever image is used, the format works as a compliment disguised as a threat, which is why it stayed popular on Black Twitter long after the original tweet went down[1].
## How It Spread
Copycat versions started appearing on Twitter within months. On October 25th, 2017, @carolineflocka tweeted "me when the race war starts and i have to kill paramore" over the same Wesley Snipes image, which picked up 35 likes[2]. A year later on October 25th, 2018, @silenthooper posted "when the race war is happening and I gotta kill tony hawk," and that iteration went off, drawing around 21,100 likes in only two days before the tweet was eventually deleted[4].
The format's biggest moment came four years later. On October 30th, 2022, Tony Hawk himself replied to the @silenthooper tweet with "I appreciate the hesitation though," which racked up roughly 83,500 likes and reintroduced the joke to a much wider audience[5]. Less than a month later, on November 20th, 2022, Twitter user @YourBudTevin slotted YouTuber Cr1TiKaL into the template and pulled in about 46,300 likes in a single day[6].
The joke also jumped image formats. On August 17th, 2019, iFunny user Dakidnextdoor_2017 used the Jesse Pinkman gun GIF from Breaking Bad with a shitpost variant, "Me when the race war starts and i have to shoot my own poop," which showed the caption structure had already broken loose from the Wesley Snipes still[3].
## How to Use
To make one, pair either the Wesley Snipes crying still from New Jack City or the Jesse Pinkman shaky-gun GIF from Breaking Bad with the caption "Me when the race war starts and I gotta kill/shoot X," where X is a white celebrity, band, or fictional character the poster wants to signal genuine affection for[1]. The X slot typically leans toward figures read as harmless or beloved, like Tony Hawk, Michael Cera, or Paramore, since the humor depends on the target feeling too likable to shoot[2].
## Frequently Asked Questions
### What is Me When The Race War Starts And I Gotta Kill X?
It is a phrasal template meme, usually paired with a still of Wesley Snipes crying and pointing a gun from New Jack City, where the poster names a white celebrity they would be sad to have to shoot in a hypothetical race war[1].
### Where did Me When The Race War Starts And I Gotta Kill X come from?
Twitter user @ahleeyou posted the first version on February 1st, 2017, using Michael Cera as the target, and it hit wider audiences after Redditor MGLLN screenshotted it to r/BlackPeopleTwitter three weeks later[1].
### What does Me When The Race War Starts And I Gotta Kill X mean?
The joke works as an inverted compliment: naming someone in the X slot is a way of saying you love them so much that the idea of harming them, even in an absurd hypothetical, would break your heart[2].
### How do you use Me When The Race War Starts And I Gotta Kill X?
Post the Wesley Snipes crying image or the Jesse Pinkman gun GIF from Breaking Bad with the caption "Me when the race war starts and I gotta kill [white celebrity you actually like]"[3].
### Is Me When The Race War Starts And I Gotta Kill X still popular?
The template's biggest documented boost came in October 2022, when Tony Hawk replied "I appreciate the hesitation though" to a 2018 tweet that named him, pulling around 83,500 likes and giving the format a second wind[5].
## References
1. [https://www.reddit.com/r/BlackPeopleTwitter/]()
2. [https://twitter.com/carolineflocka]()
3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/me-when-the-race-war-starts-and-i-gotta-kill-x]()
4. [https://web.archive.org/web/2018*/twitter.com/silenthooper]()
5. [https://twitter.com/tonyhawk]()
6. [https://twitter.com/YourBudTevin]()
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Source: https://meme.com/memes/me-when-the-race-war-starts-and-i-gotta-kill-x
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