Pawn Stars
Published September 21, 2026
Pawn Stars is a set of image macros and catchphrases based on the History Channel reality show about the Harrison family's Las Vegas pawnshop. The meme took off on 4chan in early 2010 when an anonymous user posted the show's opening monologue as a copypasta, then grew into one of the most-quoted advice animal formats of the early 2010s, built around host Rick Harrison's endless supply of expert 'buddies.'
Overview
The core format pairs stills of Rick Harrison with captions lifted from the show's negotiation scenes, letting any everyday object stand in as the item on the counter1. The most-quoted lines include 'I've got a buddy who's an expert in this and I'd like to have him take a look at it,' 'There's no market for stuff like that,' and 'I'm really interested in this item, but I don't know enough about it'3.
The joke works because the show itself is so formulaic: Rick feigns uncertainty, calls in an off-screen expert, the expert shaves the price, and the seller takes it. That structure turned every stock line into a copypasta ready to drop into a caption, and the format eventually spawned parallel image macro series based on Rick's negotiation script1. Specific viral posts are not linked in the available sourcing, though the format's peak circulation ran through advice animal caption generators and forum crossposts.
Origin & Background
How It Spread
How to Use This Meme
To make a Pawn Stars meme, take a still of Rick Harrison from the show and pair it with a caption in his voice: an over-cautious appraisal followed by a lowball offer. Common convention is to sub in whatever object the joke is really about, whether that's a game console, a cryptocurrency, or a political concept, and let Rick's script do the rest1.