# That's Real Fuckin' Neato That's Real Fuckin' Neato is an image macro featuring Bert from Sesame Street leaning against a wall in a stereotypical cool-guy pose, cropped from a 1988 storybook illustration[2]. The earliest archived copies trace back to 4chan's /jp/ board in April 2009[1], where it became a go-to sarcastic reaction image for dismissing something uninteresting while pretending to care. ## Origin The underlying picture is cropped from a page of the Sesame Street storybook Just Like Ernie, published in 1988 by Western Publishing[2]. The exact author of the macro and the moment it was first captioned are not documented, but the earliest archived instance of the image used as a reaction appears in a thread on 4chan's Otaku Culture board (/jp/) dated April 26th, 2009[1]. From that posting onward it circulated as a copy-pasted reply image rather than a template people built new variants of. - **Platform:** 4chan /jp/ (earliest archive) - **Creator:** Unknown - **Date:** 2009 ## Overview That's Real Fuckin' Neato pairs a tightly cropped picture of Bert, slouched casually against a wall with his hands near his pockets, with the titular bottom-text caption delivered in deliberately profane understatement[3]. The pose and caption together read as a sarcastic brush-off, used to acknowledge a story, achievement or opinion without actually caring about it. The image works because Bert's placid Muppet face does not match the vulgar framing of the text, which is the entire gag. The source illustration itself is wholesome children's-book art, so the macro gets its charge from treating a Sesame Street character as a bored, over-it adult sarcastically humoring whoever he is listening to[2]. ## How It Spread Hard documentation of the macro's spread outside its 4chan origin is thin. The 2009 /jp/ thread preserved on archive.moe is the earliest concrete appearance that can still be cited[1], and the Know Your Meme entry notes that both the identity of the original editor and the full timeline between the storybook image and the macro's online debut are unknown[3]. What is clear is that the picture settled into the long tail of imageboard reaction images, where it kept being reposted as a sarcastic reply any time someone announced something unremarkable. It never jumped to a mainstream platform in the way that other Sesame Street edits of Bert and Ernie did, and the Know Your Meme article's Spread and Notable Examples sections are still marked as work in progress[3]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is That's Real Fuckin' Neato? It is a sarcastic reaction image macro showing Bert from Sesame Street leaning on a wall, captioned with the phrase 'That's Real Fuckin' Neato' as a mock-polite brush-off[3]. ### Where did That's Real Fuckin' Neato come from? The picture is cropped from the 1988 Sesame Street storybook Just Like Ernie[2], and the earliest archived use of the captioned macro is a 4chan /jp/ thread from April 26th, 2009[1]. ### What does That's Real Fuckin' Neato mean? It is used to feign interest in whatever someone just said, essentially a sarcastic 'cool story' delivered by a bored-looking Bert[3]. ### How do you use That's Real Fuckin' Neato? People typically drop the macro as a standalone reply to a boring brag, update or opinion in a thread or chat, letting the mismatch between Bert's calm face and the vulgar caption carry the sarcasm[3]. ### Is That's Real Fuckin' Neato still popular? It is a classic imageboard reaction image rather than an actively trending format, with its documented history still rooted in that 2009 /jp/ posting[1]. ## References 1. [https://archive.moe/jp/thread/2490328/#2490328]() 2. [https://muppet.fandom.com/wiki/Just_Like_Ernie]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/that-s-real-fuckin-neato]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/that-s-real-fuckin-neato Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library