# Sad Kanye Sad Kanye is a Photoshop meme built around a 2012 vacation snapshot of rapper Kanye West slumped in zip-line gear beside a beaming Kim Kardashian. After the photo surfaced on Instagram in April 2014 and hit Reddit's r/pics the next day, Photoshoppers spent about a week dropping the mopey Kanye into every joyous scene they could think of. ## Origin The source photograph was taken in July 2012 during a Cabo trip with Kardashian, evidence being a shot of the couple in matching gear that Girls Gone Wild's Joe Francis tweeted on July 31, 2012[6]. The picture sat inside a Mexican zip-line office for nearly two years until photographer Alex Yenni spotted it and posted a snap to Instagram on April 30, 2014[3]. The next day, Redditor loltatz uploaded the image to r/pics under the title 'A new sad Kanye pic has emerged,' where it collected more than 16,000 upvotes within a week and kicked off the Photoshop wave[2]. - **Platform:** Instagram / Reddit (viral spread) - **Creator:** Unknown - **Date:** 2014 ## Overview The joke depends on contrast. Kanye sits low in a plastic lawn chair, harnessed up in cheery orange zip-line gear, looking utterly checked out while Kardashian smiles beside him[1]. Editors isolated his figure and pasted him into wedding photos, kids' birthday parties, class portraits, and other scenes of forced joy, always positioned slightly behind whoever was having the best day of their life[3]. Writers at Slate framed him as the natural heir to Sad Keanu, the 2010 Keanu Reeves park-bench macro that worked on the same premise of one visibly unhappy celebrity crashing an otherwise ordinary picture[1]. Death and Taxes bluntly called Sad Kanye 'the funniest meme you'll be sick of in a week,' pegging its charm and its ceiling in the same sentence[7]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Sad Kanye? A Photoshop meme built from a 2012 photo of Kanye West sitting in zip-line gear looking morose next to a smiling Kim Kardashian in Mexico[1]. ### Where did Sad Kanye come from? Instagram photographer Alex Yenni spotted the original print in a Mexican zip-line office and posted it on April 30, 2014, before Redditor loltatz took it to r/pics the next day[2][3]. ### What does Sad Kanye mean? The joke is the contrast between Kardashian's cheer and West's totally checked-out expression, which editors reused by dropping the sad Kanye figure into other happy scenes[1]. ### How do you use Sad Kanye? Isolate the seated Kanye from the original zip-line photo and paste him behind smiling people at weddings, birthday parties or group portraits, following the same setup Slate and other outlets highlighted[1][7]. ### Is Sad Kanye still popular? No. Death and Taxes predicted a one-week shelf life at the time, and coverage cooled shortly after May 2, 2014[7]. KYM documents it as a short-lived 2014 format[5]. ## References 1. [https://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/05/02/sad_kanye_zip_lining_with_kim_kardashian_is_the_new_sad_keanu_photos.html]() 2. [https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/24iknz/a_new_sad_kanye_pic_has_emerged/]() 3. [https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/a-photographer-discovered-a-picture-of-kim-kardashian-and-a]() 4. [https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/02/sad-kanye-west_n_5254454.html]() 5. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sad-kanye]() 6. [https://x.com/i/status/230385732936683520]() 7. [https://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/220219/sad-kanye-is-the-funniest-meme-youll-be-sick-of-in-a-week/]() 8. [https://www.sheknows.com/entertainment/articles/1036333/sad-kanye-memes-win-the-internet-today]() 9. [http://sadkanyedoingstuff.tumblr.com/]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/sad-kanye Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library