# Ricky Gervais 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 2011[3]. His pedantic tweets, edgy one-liners, and viral feuds made his feed one of the more notorious celebrity accounts of the early 2010s. ## Origin 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 Extras[3]. The Ricky Gervais Channel launched on YouTube on November 22, 2006, and pulled in more than 22 million video views across its first seven years[3]. 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. - **Platform:** British TV (career) / Twitter (meme presence) - **Creator:** Ricky Gervais - **Date:** 2011 ## 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 2007[3]. 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 upload[2]. Fans also ran a Tumblr single-topic blog collecting bathtub photos of him, launched August 21, 2012[3]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Ricky Gervais? Gervais is an English comedian and actor best known for playing David Brent on the UK version of The Office, who also became a fixture of Twitter meme culture through hashtag jokes and viral feuds after joining the platform in 2011[3]. ### Where did Ricky Gervais come from? He co-created The Office with Stephen Merchant and starred as regional manager David Brent from July 2001 to December 2003, then built out projects including Extras, Life's Too Short, and Derek[3]. ### What does Ricky Gervais mean as a meme? Online, "Ricky Gervais" is shorthand for a specific Twitter persona, pedantic hashtag corrections, atheist jabs, and the wheezing laugh remixed in edits like "If everybody laughed like Ricky Gervais"[2]. ### How do you use Ricky Gervais in memes? Common formats include dubbing his cackle over other people laughing, sharing his hashtag joke tweets, and clipping his Golden Globes monologue, which pulled 8.5 million views on YouTube[1]. ### Is Ricky Gervais still popular? His @rickygervais account had crossed 5.28 million followers by November 2013, and his Twitter output stayed a steady source of viral controversy across the decade[3]. ## References 1. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvHXzP2SpLA]() 2. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGxGgsGVbOs]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/people/ricky-gervais]() 4. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXhSqmfRTfY]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/ricky-gervais Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library