Pit Viper Sunglasses

2019image macroclassic

Pit Viper Sunglasses are oversized reflective 80s-style shades from a Salt Lake City sports eyewear brand that became internet meme shorthand between 2019 and 2021, first for frat bros and blue-collar white culture, then for far-right groypers after the January 6 Capitol riot. The company spent 2021 publicly telling extremists to stop wearing them under the tagline 'Extreme Sports, Not Extremist Losers.'

fashion aesthetic memesco opted memesfar right memesbrand participation memescharacter archetype memes

Overview

Pit Viper is a Salt Lake City sunglasses brand founded in 2012, known for oversized 80s-style wraparound shades with the logo printed across the top of the lens4. The glasses run about $99 for the Originals model and are aimed at cyclists, skiers, and other outdoor sports fans looking for a rowdy, deadpan-funny aesthetic3. Between 2019 and 2021 the shades picked up a second life as meme shorthand for a specific kind of American guy, first frat bros and blue-collar white men, then extreme-sports dudes, and eventually the alt-right1.

Visually the meme keys on the same detail every time: a wide, mirrored, cartoonishly aggressive lens that looks like something worn in a 1980s wrestling ring1. Meme accounts started dropping the shades onto random subjects as an exploitable, and creators on TikTok built entire 'Day in the Life' bits around the archetype of the Pit Viper guy5.

Origin & Background

Platform
Instagram / TikTok (viral spread)
Date
2019

The style of oversized reflective shades started getting used as meme shorthand for a certain kind of white American guy in late 2019. Instagram and Facebook meme page @musterpointmemes used Pit Vipers as an exploitable as early as November 23, 2019, and on TikTok user @_itsnate posted a 'Day in the Life: Pit Vipers' clip on July 7, 2020, that pulled about 225,000 plays and 39,600 likes over the following year and a half5.

The brand itself started years earlier. Co-founder Chuck Mumford picked up the first pair at a military surplus store in 2012, a batch of early-90s military deadstock, then bought 100 more online and spray-painted them himself4. Chris Garcin and company president Dave Bottomley grew the business into a 90-employee operation selling more than 30,000 pairs a year4.

How It Spread

On January 6, 2021, far-right livestreamer Anthime Gionet, better known as Baked Alaska, wore orange-tinted Pit Vipers during the U.S. Capitol riot and broadcast the whole thing on Twitch1. The Daily Beast called Gionet's outfit the first mainstream sign that the brand had been picked up by 'groypers,' the young white nationalists loosely orbiting Nick Fuentes1. Two days later Pit Viper hit back with an Instagram meme reading 'Extreme Sports / Not Extremist Losers,' and the host of a far-right Christian online show responded by smashing a pair of the glasses on camera1.

Summer 2021 pulled the meme in a lighter direction. YouTuber Trevor Wallace posted a sketch titled 'wears pit vipers once' on June 28, 2021, that pulled about 1.1 million views and 49,000 likes over four months, framing the shades as a White Boy Summer costume rather than a political tell5. The alt-right link came back on July 10, 2021, when Nick Fuentes and several supporters wore Pit Vipers while crashing CPAC in Dallas, chanting 'America First' and 'white boy summer' before security removed them6. Fuentes then told cameras he was about to give 'the most racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, Holocaust-denying speech' in Dallas that weekend6.

Pit Viper's official Twitter account tweeted that Fuentes 'needs to stop wearing Pit Vipers' and openly asked followers for help figuring out how to stop racist buyers from ordering the product1. Men's Health covered the whole fight in a December 22, 2021 feature with brand VP Spencer Harkins titled 'Pit Viper Made the Perfect Sunglasses. Then the Alt-Right Fell in Love With Them'2.

How to Use This Meme

The Pit Viper meme is typically an image edit or short video where the oversized reflective shades are dropped onto a subject to code them as a specific kind of white American guy, most often a frat bro, extreme-sports dude, or (unwillingly, from the brand's point of view) an alt-right poster1. The common TikTok convention is a 'Day in the Life' bit that plays the archetype straight, letting the shades do most of the joke2. Image edits often lean on the same deadpan tone as Pit Viper's own Instagram, which is full of photos like fondue being poured on people's faces or a sheep, a cow, and a rabbit wearing the glasses4.

Cultural Impact

Pit Viper's fight with the alt-right was one of the more visible cases of a lifestyle brand publicly rejecting an unwanted political fan base in real time. The company kept posting anti-extremist memes through 2021 despite losing sales from that segment1. Men's Health devoted a long feature to the campaign in December 2021, with VP Spencer Harkins describing how the company 'fought to get its identity back from extremists'2. By 2023 the Salt Lake Tribune reported the brand employed about 90 people, sold more than 30,000 pairs a year, and was still calling out 'racist losers' in its public communications4.

Frequently Asked Questions

Pit Viper Sunglasses

2019image macroclassic

Pit Viper Sunglasses are oversized reflective 80s-style shades from a Salt Lake City sports eyewear brand that became internet meme shorthand between 2019 and 2021, first for frat bros and blue-collar white culture, then for far-right groypers after the January 6 Capitol riot. The company spent 2021 publicly telling extremists to stop wearing them under the tagline 'Extreme Sports, Not Extremist Losers.'

fashion aesthetic memes co opted memes far right memes brand participation memes character archetype memes

Overview

Pit Viper is a Salt Lake City sunglasses brand founded in 2012, known for oversized 80s-style wraparound shades with the logo printed across the top of the lens4. The glasses run about $99 for the Originals model and are aimed at cyclists, skiers, and other outdoor sports fans looking for a rowdy, deadpan-funny aesthetic3. Between 2019 and 2021 the shades picked up a second life as meme shorthand for a specific kind of American guy, first frat bros and blue-collar white men, then extreme-sports dudes, and eventually the alt-right1.

Visually the meme keys on the same detail every time: a wide, mirrored, cartoonishly aggressive lens that looks like something worn in a 1980s wrestling ring1. Meme accounts started dropping the shades onto random subjects as an exploitable, and creators on TikTok built entire 'Day in the Life' bits around the archetype of the Pit Viper guy5.

Origin & Background

Platform
Instagram / TikTok (viral spread)
Date
2019

The style of oversized reflective shades started getting used as meme shorthand for a certain kind of white American guy in late 2019. Instagram and Facebook meme page @musterpointmemes used Pit Vipers as an exploitable as early as November 23, 2019, and on TikTok user @_itsnate posted a 'Day in the Life: Pit Vipers' clip on July 7, 2020, that pulled about 225,000 plays and 39,600 likes over the following year and a half5.

The brand itself started years earlier. Co-founder Chuck Mumford picked up the first pair at a military surplus store in 2012, a batch of early-90s military deadstock, then bought 100 more online and spray-painted them himself4. Chris Garcin and company president Dave Bottomley grew the business into a 90-employee operation selling more than 30,000 pairs a year4.

How It Spread

On January 6, 2021, far-right livestreamer Anthime Gionet, better known as Baked Alaska, wore orange-tinted Pit Vipers during the U.S. Capitol riot and broadcast the whole thing on Twitch1. The Daily Beast called Gionet's outfit the first mainstream sign that the brand had been picked up by 'groypers,' the young white nationalists loosely orbiting Nick Fuentes1. Two days later Pit Viper hit back with an Instagram meme reading 'Extreme Sports / Not Extremist Losers,' and the host of a far-right Christian online show responded by smashing a pair of the glasses on camera1.

Summer 2021 pulled the meme in a lighter direction. YouTuber Trevor Wallace posted a sketch titled 'wears pit vipers once' on June 28, 2021, that pulled about 1.1 million views and 49,000 likes over four months, framing the shades as a White Boy Summer costume rather than a political tell5. The alt-right link came back on July 10, 2021, when Nick Fuentes and several supporters wore Pit Vipers while crashing CPAC in Dallas, chanting 'America First' and 'white boy summer' before security removed them6. Fuentes then told cameras he was about to give 'the most racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, Holocaust-denying speech' in Dallas that weekend6.

Pit Viper's official Twitter account tweeted that Fuentes 'needs to stop wearing Pit Vipers' and openly asked followers for help figuring out how to stop racist buyers from ordering the product1. Men's Health covered the whole fight in a December 22, 2021 feature with brand VP Spencer Harkins titled 'Pit Viper Made the Perfect Sunglasses. Then the Alt-Right Fell in Love With Them'2.

How to Use This Meme

The Pit Viper meme is typically an image edit or short video where the oversized reflective shades are dropped onto a subject to code them as a specific kind of white American guy, most often a frat bro, extreme-sports dude, or (unwillingly, from the brand's point of view) an alt-right poster1. The common TikTok convention is a 'Day in the Life' bit that plays the archetype straight, letting the shades do most of the joke2. Image edits often lean on the same deadpan tone as Pit Viper's own Instagram, which is full of photos like fondue being poured on people's faces or a sheep, a cow, and a rabbit wearing the glasses4.

Cultural Impact

Pit Viper's fight with the alt-right was one of the more visible cases of a lifestyle brand publicly rejecting an unwanted political fan base in real time. The company kept posting anti-extremist memes through 2021 despite losing sales from that segment1. Men's Health devoted a long feature to the campaign in December 2021, with VP Spencer Harkins describing how the company 'fought to get its identity back from extremists'2. By 2023 the Salt Lake Tribune reported the brand employed about 90 people, sold more than 30,000 pairs a year, and was still calling out 'racist losers' in its public communications4.

Frequently Asked Questions