Black and white stencil of afro man with crossed arms above the words POOL'S CLOSED

Pool's Closed

2006catchphraseclassic

Published September 23, 2026

Pool's Closed is the catchphrase behind one of the earliest coordinated 4chan raids, launched in July 2006 when /b/ users flooded Habbo Hotel with identical black avatars sporting giant afros and grey business suits. Their human blockade of the virtual pool set the template for organized Anonymous trolling and produced some of the movement's longest-running mascots.

trolling memes 4chan memes catchphrase memes late 2000s memes virtual worlds memes

Overview

The Pool's Closed raid worked because Habbo Hotel's engine wouldn't let avatars walk through each other, so a tightly packed line of identical characters could seal off a room's only entrance1. The raiders standardized on one look: a dark-skinned male avatar with a giant afro and a grey business suit, chanting "Pool's closed due to AIDS" at anyone who tried to enter3. That specific costume turned into the visual shorthand for the entire operation and later showed up on t-shirts, image macros and every /b/ thread commemorating the raid7.

The format spawned three linked mascots that still show up in 4chan folklore: the smiling black man clip art used to represent the raider avatar, the Afroduck (a raider caught in a lucky screenshot behind a bronze duck statue) and Swastiget, a formation of avatars arranged into a swastika to bait moderators3. The tone was pure early-4chan lulz, half satire aimed at the Habbo moderators the raiders believed were profiling darker-skinned avatars, half slapstick harassment of any user who wandered near the pool1.

Origin & Background

Platform
4chan /b/ (organized) / Habbo Hotel (executed)
Creator
Unknown
Date
2006

The trigger was a set of rumors circulating on 4chan's /b/ (random) board in mid-2006 claiming that Habbo Hotel's social moderators were profiling and banning avatars with darker skin tones1. On July 6, 2006, a group of /b/ users calling itself /b/lockers organized the first coordinated raid, coating the pool area with a wall of matching afro-and-suit avatars until the room was unusable3. The exploit was mechanical rather than a code bug: avatars physically could not pass through each other, so the human wall stayed intact as long as the raiders held position.

The raid escalated over the following week, drawing participants from Encyclopedia Dramatica, YTMND and other Anonymous-adjacent sites, and hit its peak on July 12, 2006 when the flood of matching raider avatars crashed a majority of Habbo's public rooms and discussion forums3. Habbo Hotel went offline later that same day, and July 12 turned into the raid's unofficial anniversary date, marked each year by a repeat performance1.

How It Spread

The raid didn't stay contained to Habbo. Within days a piece of freeware called the "Pool Tool" was passed around /b/, bundling tips for dodging bans, spamming chat lines and slipping past the site's word filter. Signature phrases like "Pool's closed due to AIDS" and the /b/ slang "harbl" both wound up on Habbo's blocklist as a direct result of the campaign3. The clip-art mascot spread just as fast onto t-shirts and remix images, and by mid-2006 attendees at Otakon were reportedly wearing "Pool's Closed Tour '06" shirts and shouting the catchphrase at strangers7.

The bit stuck around online long after the original raid. Oh Internet's entry notes that Habbo raids had been practiced on Something Awful and possibly YTMND as far back as 2004, but that the specific Pool's Closed framing crystallized in the 2006 4chan operation1. YouTube compilations of the blockades in action kept the visuals in front of a new audience2, and real-world reenactments and cosplay riffs made their way onto the platform too, keeping the chant alive in in-person events45.

The most recent twist landed in late October 2025, when YouTuber Justin Whang uploaded "The Many Faces of 4Chan" on October 21 and mentioned that the smiling black man clip art at the center of the meme was "obviously traced from something" whose origin he couldn't identify3. That same day Twitter user @IKJLeio replied with an unedited version pulled from a 2006 software company site preserved on the Wayback Machine6, and roughly two hours later followed up by locating the true source: a stock clip art pack titled "Task Force Clip Art Really Big Edition" archived on Internet Archive3. The reveal thread pulled over 82,000 views inside a day3.

Timeline

2004

Earlier Habbo raids run by Something Awful and possibly YTMND users, predating the Pool's Closed framing.

2006-07-06

First organized /b/lockers raid on Habbo Hotel using afro-and-suit avatars to block the pool.

2006-07-12

Peak of the raid, joined from Encyclopedia Dramatica and YTMND. Habbo Hotel goes offline the same day.

2006-08

"Pool's Closed Tour '06" t-shirts spotted at Otakon 2006, with wearers dressed as the Habbo mascot.

2025-10-21

Justin Whang uploads "The Many Faces of 4Chan" and publicly asks about the origin of the smiling black man clip art.

2025-10-21

Twitter user @IKJLeio identifies the clip art's source as "Task Force Clip Art Really Big Edition", a 2006 stock pack found on Internet Archive.

How to Use This Meme

A Pool's Closed post typically features the black-afro-and-suit mascot, sometimes photoshopped into unrelated scenes to declare that some new thing is now closed (Sparta from 300, a pickup truck bed converted into a makeshift pool, US political situations)1. The common convention is to keep the deadpan blockade energy: the mascot is doing you a favor by shutting the thing down, and the caption is usually just the phrase itself or a "due to AIDS" variant. Today it's often used ironically to mock any perceived gatekeeping.

Frequently Asked Questions