Ricky Gervais grinning and giving two thumbs up on stage at an awards show.

Ricky Gervais

2011personalityclassic

Published September 24, 2026

Ricky Gervais is the English comedian best known for creating David Brent on the UK version of The Office, but his second act as a Twitter provocateur turned him into a walking hashtag meme after joining the platform in 20113. His pedantic tweets, edgy one-liners, and viral feuds made his feed one of the more notorious celebrity accounts of the early 2010s.

celebrity backlash memes twitter memes british memes hashtag memes pedantry memes

Overview

Gervais built his mainstream career through the BBC's The Office from July 2001 to December 2003, then Extras with Stephen Merchant from 2005 to 20073. His online meme presence took a different shape than his onscreen work. Rather than becoming a source of clip-based image macros, Gervais got tied to hashtag pedantry, blunt jokes about religion and death, and repeated arguments with strangers over dead lions and dead prime ministers.

His own laugh, a wheezing high-pitched cackle familiar from the podcasts he recorded with Merchant and Karl Pilkington, became a mini-meme on its own. YouTube remix videos overlay the laugh onto footage of other celebrities laughing, with the edit "If everybody laughed like Ricky Gervais" pulling in over 770,000 views within five months of upload2. Fans also ran a Tumblr single-topic blog collecting bathtub photos of him, launched August 21, 20123.

Origin & Background

Platform
British TV (career) / Twitter (meme presence)
Creator
Ricky Gervais
Date
2011

Gervais started building an internet footprint years before Twitter existed. On July 5, 2005, Urban Dictionary user Riteous Mango submitted an entry for "Ricky Gervais" citing his roles on The Office and Extras3. The Ricky Gervais Channel launched on YouTube on November 22, 2006, and pulled in more than 22 million video views across its first seven years3. His pre-comedy life also got dug back up when clips of his 1983 New Wave duo Seona Dancing, formed with Bill Macrae, resurfaced online, including the single "Bitter Heart"4.

His Twitter account, opened in 2011, is where the meme reputation took hold. The /r/rickygervais subreddit had gone live for fan discussion on March 19, 2010, and on September 4, 2013 he did an r/IAmA AMA that pulled about 27,000 upvotes and 6,000 comments before archiving. By November 2013 the @rickygervais feed had crossed 5.28 million followers.

How It Spread

The viral moments cluster around 2013. On April 8, 2013, after Margaret Thatcher's death sent #nowthatchersdead trending, Gervais posted a joke clarifying that the tag read "Now Thatcher's dead" and not "Now that Cher's dead." A month later, on May 21, 2013, he mocked an MTV News tweet about pop stars sending "prayers" to Oklahoma tornado victims, writing that he felt like an idiot for only sending money.

The biggest single flashpoint came on November 14, 2013, when TV presenter Melissa Bachman posted a photo posing with a lion she had shot in South Africa. Gervais quote-tweeted the image with the caption "spot the typo," implicitly labeling her with a slur, and the post gathered over 3,300 retweets and 1,700 favorites in its first week3.

His 2011 Golden Globes hosting stint fed the same reputation. YouTuber J.D. Funari's upload of the opening monologue drew more than 8.5 million views and 17,000 comments across its first three years1, with Gawker calling the speech "extremely uncomfortable" the same day it aired3.

Timeline

2005-07-05

Urban Dictionary entry for "Ricky Gervais" submitted by user Riteous Mango, citing his roles on The Office and Extras.

2006-11-22

The Ricky Gervais Channel launches on YouTube, later pulling over 22 million video views across seven years.

2010-03-19

/r/rickygervais subreddit created for fan discussion.

2011

Gervais joins Twitter as @rickygervais and starts posting hashtag jokes and confrontational replies.

2012-08-21

The single-topic Tumblr blog "Ricky Gervais in his Bath" launches, collecting bathtub photos of the comedian.

2013-04-08

Gervais posts his #nowthatchersdead vs. "Now that Cher's dead" clarification joke after Margaret Thatcher's death.

2013-05-21

Gervais mocks MTV News' Oklahoma tornado "prayers" tweet by saying he feels like an idiot for only sending money.

2013-11-15

Gervais quote-tweets Melissa Bachman's lion hunting photo with "spot the typo," collecting 3,300+ retweets in the first week.

Frequently Asked Questions