# That's Racist! That's Racist! is a reaction GIF and catchphrase pulled from a 2005 Wonder Showzen sketch, showing a kid mouthing the words straight at the camera. The clip spread through YTMND, 4chan and deviantART in the late 2000s before NPR declared it a mainstream quip in 2011, becoming the go-to retort for calling out faux offenses on the internet. ## Origin The source clip comes from Wonder Showzen, the MTV2 sketch show that aired from 2005 to 2006, specifically the animated segment "Plastic Surgeons Without Borders"[1]. In the bit, a Black child turns to the camera right after the cartoon and yells "That's racist!" The YouTube upload of the original segment is the most widely shared record of the moment[4]. The internet life of the GIF began on June 4th, 2005, when a YTMND page titled That's Racist! was created, pairing the loop with sound[1]. On June 16th, 2005, deviantART user dmario uploaded a version to the art-sharing site, giving the GIF a second early home outside YTMND[1]. - **Platform:** MTV2 (source) / YTMND (viral spread) - **Creator:** Wonder Showzen (MTV2) - **Date:** 2005 ## Overview That's Racist! is a short animated GIF of a young boy mouthing the titular phrase directly at the viewer, usually captioned with the exact words. The clip is ripped from an animated sketch called "Plastic Surgeons Without Borders" on the MTV2 show Wonder Showzen, where the kid pops up right after the cartoon ends to level the accusation at the camera[1]. Online, the GIF is used as a mock-serious retort rather than an actual callout. People drop it under posts that make the mildest racial reference, or under posts that have nothing to do with race at all, which is where most of the humor lives[2]. Common remixes include O RLY, 300 "This is Sparta" and Asian-styled edits of the same kid, all built around the same lip-sync beat[3]. By the early 2010s the phrase had jumped off image boards into actual speech. NPR noted characters on Parks and Recreation using it to mock laundry sorting, and reported teens and comedians, including Hannibal Buress, using it ironically to needle people about overreactions[2]. ## How It Spread After the YTMND and deviantART uploads, the GIF moved onto 4chan. The earliest archived /b/ thread featuring it was posted on May 10th, 2007 by an anonymous user[1]. In January 2008 a Bodybuilding.com forum member named An hero asked for the clip in a thread titled "'That's racist' gif," and replies produced the Wonder Showzen original along with O RLY, 300 and Asian remix variants that circulated for years afterward[1]. The phrase kept picking up dedicated homes. The Tumblr blog "That is Racist" launched on March 4th, 2009, aggregating racial-humor image macros and GIFs[1]. Urban Dictionary got its first "that's racist" entry on August 11th, 2010, by user Kilokahn, logging the ironic usage[1]. On June 27th, 2011, NPR ran "'That's Racist!' How A Serious Accusation Became A Commonplace Quip," tracing the online meme into everyday speech and sitcom scripts[2]. Reddit boosted it further. On February 6th, 2012, Redditor madturk77 posted the GIF to /r/gifs under a photo of a man in a sombrero captioned "Plays Uno / Steals all the green cards"[5]. Redditor LobaltSS reposted the same image to /r/funny on May 18th, 2012, where it pulled over 5,800 upvotes[6]. By July 2012 a Facebook page for "That's Racist" had passed 25,000 likes[1]. The Wonder Showzen clip also lent its name to the hip hop duo Das Racist, whose MC Himanshu Suri said the group's name was inspired by the sketch[3]. ## How to Use Common convention is to drop the GIF or the words "That's racist!" under a post that made a race-adjacent joke, or more often one that didn't. The humor typically comes from how absurdly disproportionate the reaction is to the trigger, which is why Parks and Recreation got laughs applying it to sorting laundry[2]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is That's Racist!? It's a reaction GIF of a kid mouthing "That's racist!" from the MTV2 show Wonder Showzen, used online as a mock-outrage retort[1]. ### Where did That's Racist! come from? From a 2005 Wonder Showzen animated sketch called "Plastic Surgeons Without Borders," with the earliest known upload on YTMND on June 4th, 2005[1]. ### What does That's Racist! mean? It's an ironic callout, often aimed at posts that have nothing to do with race, which NPR described as a serious accusation turned into a commonplace quip[2]. ### How do you use That's Racist!? People drop the GIF or the phrase in replies to posts, usually to mock an overreaction, like the Parks and Recreation gag about sorting laundry into whites and darks[2]. ### Is That's Racist! still popular? It's a classic 2000s reaction GIF. It stayed active through the 2010s via Tumblr, Reddit and a Facebook page that passed 25,000 likes by July 2012[1]. ## References 1. [https://www.npr.org/2011/06/27/137451481/thats-racist-how-a-serious-accusation-became-a-commonplace-quip]() 2. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/thats-racist]() 3. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Racist#Name_origin]() 4. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdSYhwLENvM]() 5. [https://www.reddit.com/r/gifs/comments/pdy88/thats_racist/]() 6. [https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/tu6j9/thats_racist/]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/thats-racist Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library