# Stephen Hawking Stephen Hawking was the English theoretical physicist behind A Brief History of Time whose synthesized voice, wheelchair, and cameo appearances made him one of the most memed scientists on the internet. After his death on March 14, 2018, tribute posts, photoshops and Kirstie Alley's widely mocked "you had a good go at it" tweet sparked a fresh wave of jokes across Reddit and Twitter. ## Origin Hawking was born January 8, 1942 in Oxford, England, diagnosed with motor neurone disease at 21, and adopted the Equalizer speech program in 1986 that gave him the robotic voice everyone associates with him[5]. That voice became the first true meme-adjacent artifact: on November 9, 2009, musician John Boswell of Symphony of Science released "A Glorious Dawn," auto-tuning clips of Hawking from the Stephen Hawking's Universe TV series into a viral tribute song[5]. The video introduced a younger internet audience to Hawking as a remixable figure rather than just a science celebrity. A second origin point was the March 30, 2011 Epic Rap Battles of History episode pitting Hawking against Albert Einstein, uploaded by Nice Peter, which passed 102 million views over the next five years and cemented Hawking's status as internet character shorthand for "the smart one"[5]. The post-death meme wave has a specific catalyst too: Hawking died on March 14, 2018, and hours later actress Kirstie Alley tweeted a black-and-white photo of him with the caption "You had a good go at it..thanks for your input," which was quickly mocked as an accidentally hilarious understatement[6]. - **Platform:** YouTube (Symphony of Science) / Reddit (viral tributes) - **Creator:** Unknown - **Date:** 2009 ## Overview Stephen Hawking was a real physicist first and a meme subject second, but the internet turned his synthesized DECtalk voice, motorized wheelchair and wry public persona into shorthand for pure genius, usually deployed in wholesome science jokes rather than punching-down ones[1]. His A Brief History of Time made him a household name in 1988, and the same book became a running visual gag in dorm rooms and reaction images decades later[2]. The meme version of Hawking shows up in a few recurring formats. There are the sincere "smartest guy in the room" edits pairing him with Einstein or Newton, the fan-remix songs built around his voice clips, and the ironic image macros where his likeness is grafted into unrelated pop-culture scenes[3]. After his death on March 14, 2018, a second layer appeared: tribute photoshops, wheelchair-ascending-to-space edits and jokes about him dying on Albert Einstein's birthday[4]. The humor mostly works because Hawking himself leaned into pop culture, taking cameos on The Simpsons, Star Trek: The Next Generation and The Big Bang Theory, so remixing him rarely feels mean[3]. Urban Dictionary entries note he was a "pop culture icon" as much as a scientist, which is why the meme material keeps recirculating[1]. ## How It Spread Hawking's transition from public intellectual to full internet character happened in stages across YouTube and Reddit. After Symphony of Science and the Epic Rap Battles video established the remix template, TED released his "Questioning the Universe" talk on April 4, 2008, giving remixers a clean high-quality clip pool[5]. On July 16, 2014, Redditor imjustadude90 posted a multi-pane image of Hawking and John Oliver to r/funny that pulled in over 12,000 upvotes, one of the earliest big Hawking image-macro hits on the subreddit[7]. Hawking then went interactive. On July 27, 2015, he did a Science AMA on r/science that gathered over 10,900 upvotes and 8,900 comments before archival, giving Reddit a direct-quote reservoir to screenshot into memes[8]. On January 27, 2016, the IQIM Caltech YouTube channel posted a Paul Rudd sketch where Hawking plays "quantum chess," which passed 1.7 million views in three months and got re-shared for its deadpan comedy beat[5]. That same year he joined the Chinese platform Sina Weibo on April 12 and hit a million followers within 48 hours, with his greeting post picking up over 500,000 likes[5]. The biggest single-day spike came with his death. On March 14, 2018, Hawking topped Twitter's trending topics and multiple tribute and joke threads hit the front pages of r/news, r/science, r/space and r/worldnews[9]. Redditor Toxicxxfuzion's post about Hawking dying on Einstein's birthday landed on r/nevertellmetheodds, and r/dankmemes filled with photoshop tributes the same day[5]. Kirstie Alley's terse tweet drew coverage from Daily Mail, Daily Dot and Wonderwall, with users like @i_zzzzzz calling it "the funniest thing anyone has ever said about someone who just died" and @DavidFarrier calling it the best Hawking obituary[6]. ## How to Use Common conventions include pairing Hawking with other physics icons like Einstein or Newton for "three greatest minds" jokes, dubbing his synthesized voice over unlikely audio, or photoshopping his wheelchair into pop-culture scenes. Post-2018 tribute edits typically show him leaving the chair to walk or fly, usually captioned with an in-joke about relativity or with Einstein's birthday coincidence[4]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Stephen Hawking? Stephen Hawking was an English theoretical physicist who wrote A Brief History of Time and became a recurring internet meme figure through remix songs, image macros and tribute jokes[2]. ### Where did Stephen Hawking come from? The meme material draws on his public appearances, his synthesized DECtalk voice adopted in 1986, and remix videos like Symphony of Science's 2009 "A Glorious Dawn"[5]. ### What does the Stephen Hawking meme mean? Hawking is usually used as visual shorthand for genius or for wholesome physics jokes, sometimes paired with Einstein or Newton in "three greatest minds" edits[5]. ### How do you use the Stephen Hawking meme? Typical uses include photoshopping him into pop-culture scenes, remixing his voice clips into songs, or captioning post-2018 tribute images with relativity in-jokes[4]. ### Is the Stephen Hawking meme still popular? It is a classic reference that still recirculates around his birthday, death anniversary and any big physics news, though the biggest single burst was around his March 14, 2018 death[9]. ### Why did Kirstie Alley's tweet about Hawking become a meme? Alley posted a black-and-white photo captioned "You had a good go at it..thanks for your input" hours after Hawking died, and users mocked it as an accidental understatement about one of the great minds in physics[6]. ### What did the Epic Rap Battles Hawking video do? The March 30, 2011 Hawking vs Einstein episode by Nice Peter cemented him as a pop-culture character online and passed 102 million views over five years[5]. ### Did Stephen Hawking do a Reddit AMA? Yes, on July 27, 2015 he hosted a Science AMA on r/science that collected over 10,900 upvotes and 8,900 comments before archival[8]. ### Was there something odd about the date Hawking died? He died on March 14, 2018, which is Albert Einstein's birthday and Pi Day, a coincidence Redditor Toxicxxfuzion turned into a r/nevertellmetheodds post the same day[5]. ### Did Hawking take part in any AI or space activism online? In July 2015 he signed the Future of Life Institute open letter opposing autonomous weapons, and in April 2016 co-announced Breakthrough Initiatives' Project Starshot laser probe program[10]. ## References 1. [https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/mar/14/stephen-hawking-professor-dies-aged-76]() 2. [https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43396008]() 3. [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Stephen%20Hawking]() 4. [https://www.reddit.com/r/dankmemes/comments/84b0eb/rip_hawking_f/]() 5. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/stephen-hawking]() 6. [https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-5509165/Kirstie-Alley-branded-heartless-Stephen-Hawking-tribute.html]() 7. [https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/28a5e5/stephen_hawking_and_john_oliver/]() 8. [https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/3eret9/science_ama_series_i_am_stephen_hawking/]() 9. [https://news.sky.com/story/scientist-stephen-hawking-has-died-aged-76-11289119]() 10. [https://futureoflife.org/open-letter-autonomous-weapons/]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/stephen-hawking Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library