# Parents Throwing Baby

Parents Throwing Baby is a photoshopped image of a couple appearing to toss an infant across a rocky chasm, edited from a 1995 Patagonia catalog photo by climbing photographer Greg Epperson[1]. The doctored version surfaced on Reddit in January 2011 and grew into a long-running photoshop template used for shock humor and object-labeled political jokes.

## Origin
The source photograph was shot by climbing photographer Greg Epperson and ran in the Spring 1995 Patagonia outdoor wear catalog, showing a man and woman tossing a bag across a gap between cliffs[1]. The earliest known photoshopped version, with a baby swapped in for the bag, appeared on r/pics on January 23, 2011, posted by Redditor RocketRobinhood[2]. When Semi Rad later asked Epperson if he had made the edit himself, he answered, "Maybe I did or maybe I didn't"[1].

- **Platform:** Reddit
- **Creator:** Unknown
- **Date:** 2011

## Overview
The image shows two rock climbers on opposite ledges of a canyon with an infant appearing to fly through the air between them. In the original Patagonia photo the couple was tossing a duffel bag across the gap, and someone swapped a baby in for the bag to create the shock-value edit[1]. Its dark humor rides on the dissonance between a calm, professional gear-ad composition and the horrific act it appears to depict.

The photo's polished, real look fooled plenty of early viewers, which is part of why the edit kept circulating online[1]. Later remixers built it into a full photoshop template, swapping the baby for whatever labeled object fit the joke they wanted to make.

## Frequently Asked Questions
### What is Parents Throwing Baby?
A photoshopped image, edited from a 1995 Patagonia catalog photo by climbing photographer Greg Epperson, that appears to show a couple tossing an infant across a rocky chasm[1].

### Where did Parents Throwing Baby come from?
The source photograph is by Greg Epperson and ran in Patagonia's Spring 1995 outdoor wear catalog, and the doctored baby version has circulated online in photoshopped form since the early 2010s[1].

### What does Parents Throwing Baby mean?
It's a shock-humor edit reused online as a photoshop template, often used for jokes about reckless behavior handed off between two parties[1].

### How do you use Parents Throwing Baby?
Users typically swap the baby for a labeled object and cast the parents as whoever is enabling the reckless handoff, as in a 2019 anti-vaccination edit that drew more than 28,000 upvotes on r/MemeEconomy[2].

### Is Parents Throwing Baby still popular?
It's a classic Reddit template still shared online more than a decade after its 2011 debut, though it's not a currently trending meme[1].

## References
1. [https://semi-rad.com/2011/06/photo-of-climbing-couple-tossing-baby-real-or-fake/](<https://semi-rad.com/2011/06/photo-of-climbing-couple-tossing-baby-real-or-fake/>)
2. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/parents-throwing-baby](<https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/parents-throwing-baby>)

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Source: https://meme.com/memes/parents-throwing-baby
Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library