# Sweating Towel Guy Sweating Towel Guy is an exploitable illustration of a nervous man mopping his brow with a towel, lifted from stock health art about excessive perspiration and repurposed on 4chan in 2011 for greentext MFW stories. The drawing became a go-to reaction image for social anxiety posts across 4chan, FunnyJunk and NeoGAF, spawning a run of Photoshopped edits through 2013. ## Origin The illustration originally circulated in medical and lifestyle articles about excessive sweating, where it was used as generic stock art for hyperhidrosis pieces[2]. Its jump to meme status came on September 30th, 2011, when an anonymous poster on 4chan's /v/ (video games) board used the drawing to illustrate a greentext story about the anxiety of trying to leave a GameStop after a cashier's cheerful "enjoy your game"[3]. The bit hinged on the narrator accidentally replying "you too," with the sweating man supplying the MFW punchline[3]. No individual artist has been credited with drawing the image, so the meme creator is listed as Unknown[1]. The 4chan /v/ thread is the earliest documented use of the picture as a reaction, not its origin as an illustration[3]. - **Platform:** Stock health illustration / 4chan (viral spread) - **Creator:** Unknown - **Date:** 2011 ## Overview Sweating Towel Guy is a simple line illustration of a bespectacled man dabbing beads of sweat off his forehead with a folded towel, his face frozen in a tight, uncomfortable smile[1]. The picture started life as clip-art attached to health articles about hyperhidrosis and excessive perspiration before 4chan users pulled it into the reaction-image circuit[1]. The joke works because the drawing reads as pure social discomfort. Posters pair it with greentext MFW ("my face when") stories describing awkward, low-stakes humiliations, a cashier interaction gone wrong, a lie told to a teacher, a bluff about having read a book, so that the sweating man stands in for the narrator's flop-sweat panic[1]. Edits eventually pushed the image past straight reaction use, cropping the towel and glasses onto other characters or redrawing the guy in different art styles[1]. ## How It Spread After the /v/ post, the drawing moved through the usual 2010s reaction-image pipeline. On May 11th, 2012, the blog Meanwhile On Fit ran a compilation of "fat people stories" that used Sweating Towel Guy as the accompanying reaction art for one of the greentexts[4]. On September 24th, 2012, FunnyJunk user ianosity posted the image with an MFW caption about pulling a last-minute book report out of Wikipedia, one of the first appearances of the format off 4chan proper[5]. Edits followed in 2013. On January 23rd, NeoGAF member Dresden shared a Photoshopped version of the sweating man in a gaming thread, an early sign the image was being remixed rather than just reposted[6]. On June 15th, 2013, an anonymous user on 4chan's /tg/ (traditional games) board posted a redraw that restyled Sweating Towel Guy as a Dark Souls character, complete with armor and a bonfire setting[1]. After the 2013 edit wave, Sweating Towel Guy settled into the reaction-image back catalogue. It is still recognizable to users familiar with early-2010s 4chan greentext culture but is no longer a trending template[1]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Sweating Towel Guy? Sweating Towel Guy is an exploitable line drawing of a nervous man wiping his forehead with a towel, used on 4chan as a reaction image for MFW greentext stories about social anxiety[1]. ### Where did Sweating Towel Guy come from? The illustration was stock art for articles about excessive sweating[2] before an anonymous 4chan /v/ user paired it with a GameStop greentext on September 30th, 2011[3]. ### What does Sweating Towel Guy mean? The image stands in for flop-sweat embarrassment and low-stakes social panic, typically the narrator's MFW moment inside a greentext story[1]. ### How do you use Sweating Towel Guy? Paste the drawing under a short MFW or greentext post describing an awkward interaction, so the sweating face reads as your reaction to the story's punchline[3]. ### Is Sweating Towel Guy still popular? It is a classic 4chan reaction image from the early 2010s rather than a trending template today, still recognized by users familiar with that era's greentext culture[1]. ## References 1. [https://chanarchive.org/4chan/v/22574/go-to-gamestop-buy-a-game-person-says-enjoy-your-game-you-too-mfw]() 2. [https://www.google.com/search?tbs=sbi:AMhZZivnfocRy-fgP8xT2glWvqzwtLfNveQjDeH-0FmR5H_1SgnxLLzMwMVdcsVAHFAd2f9X7RNBZ3lrkFgic_14HhnMt6SeQWXJpELjiu8SM1cjMEtVZmxbA6sHakJcu6sFn7n68O7wc3u16LTfqgGB_18_1xSuuGpc4WuXfP5-VVYcCWrUmSmDW8lMyzC8asTTqqwOg-P_1G82gQmUPKrj20YwzRHGtpD1mN03wocQh-JDo2l8_13X9wDyQpwZl2m79m0NBHv467WsCElw2BTP1P5gzRfAkdYqY4iEcrVW5jGBVh7QKr2NZG16qYUmpNar3WbZmpsReaL7wCBdeFb1oIjAwbEQ_1MJxfD5tztnvzGjUJYf65fbLUIFp2-luv2uN6TgZUl1_1scobDtXUp43vEc4cNegOOXqN32l2q7LAEtqe8emx03aXVewakpLe9fVDdXLAE5Ig7RvRkhBOKZHOZtlgD5v0qCgSpTX_1oYQhhsKeGjqV695TVygFYnOLgqxAwEUUdqYI7W-MxZEy0e9Re_1f7r_1-xILWaUBy8NyG_1X3WtAr7RZ8QyOdgYhEXXRaECQ1Sv-qhEXKJFXjXsEvq9v2ROefBFOVoEgA0vG1DqcvvQxU1qjzEntxoVzimS7D6RLL1cBKr7jHvwYJw_1dkNLPOTRJfJ8lr0UNrEWJpE29KNhY5qASV_1wekbYBC0yIWQ5Lik5U_16jqHLtcvsqbSyJNe8YIlL7RHtT2NKcNvX9BQrUB0179HizY1ZcwKJ1H7HenYXBCcfWBwFaYuV2SGLzZXKrA0buW6Hg5OqUeU2_1p3JbBMFWrKKYGZltxVfFEFKVRwn6UbxUvUDsusS0xJq-PnEgYbKH3jZfWhIOSlK7qyuGUGY9YtrpO5FcPDv_1JZDM5cpXRd5alOmwKtdtEJnruHpWEh8nZqvE5VGfGree5-J3s1Rc24PlvYIGk8DPrItk5hF2eqUrG1f-ZCcn6rstsUQ_1ZJ3uoHp74p47wn26KySdN2_17Ebc7d5geGMxRHWzgZWJ6TDn4c6ztv7hKmRjSD1AdWyusZXI_11CM5HHWNOOSvpQBWxe8uNNSj7lqy8tViDMG9fo1Ys19fkFWCcp0qFCDsl45JT7uMExr7wNbPYrWJ8jO1LH48HqyjRoWFc94r3OEKIP1AtNT6J5SwLjI3h28EIQUKrLD64epMtzJ1k9aWPqucpoB0sQoa4wMCdaiVAlxxbgPC4PTyr61NVSOn1wbmpq8xWpkoYJuPnXBvnkEsvh1jrUGW0RkRRTdrAw8tpxSeQsDaHq15J1CLueW17FNvpDKq0dd5gD47asNY6QFKlY25LwIXijKJD-J-frruCSK1XUpv55g2ituDy4A9fym_13WyqhBVlLzHA&safe=off&bih=951&biw=1031]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sweating-towel-guy]() 4. [http://meanwhileonfit.weebly.com/fat-people-stories--2.html]() 5. [https://funnyjunk.com/comment/anonymous/content/4116301/-5/1/parent_id/20/2]() 6. [https://www.neogaf.com/threads/winter-of-anime-2013-ot-5-this-is-stupid-kayos90-sucks.509386/page-17#post-46768752]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/sweating-towel-guy Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library