Black silhouette of the Babadook monster wearing a top hat with sharp claws on a light grey background

The Babadook

2016image macro / character memeclassic

Published October 1, 2026

The Babadook started as a 2014 Australian psychological horror film about a grieving mother and a top-hatted storybook monster, then took on a bizarre second life in 2016 when a Netflix category screenshot sparked the running joke that the character is gay. By Pride Month 2017, the pop-up book villain was a full-blown LGBTQ meme icon.

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Overview

The Babadook refers both to Jennifer Kent's 2014 Australian horror film and to the meme that reframed its charcoal-sketched, top-hat-wearing monster as a gay icon1. The joke took off after screenshots circulated showing Netflix had filed the movie under its LGBT category, which Tumblr and Twitter users ran with as proof that the suburban-haunting ghoul was, in fact, queer2. Mashable later confirmed Netflix no longer classified the film that way, but by then the bit had outgrown the source1.

The format usually pairs a still of the Babadook, often in his tailored black coat and stovepipe hat, with captions treating him as a drag queen, a Grindr match, or a relatable queer archetype who lives in a basement rent-free3. Teen Vogue summarized the appeal by noting the character 'made a pop-up book of himself for the drama of it all,' which fans read as camp performance rather than horror3. Variants include Pride-flag edits, fake dating-app profiles, and jokes casting the monster on RuPaul's Drag Race3.

A parallel strain of Babadook humor comes from Katie Dippold's viral Halloween photo, in which the comedy writer showed up in full movie-accurate Babadook costume to a casual party where nobody else dressed up4. That image became its own cringe reaction template about social overcommitment, separate from but adjacent to the gay-icon run4.

Origin & Background

Platform
Tumblr / Twitter (viral spread)
Date
2016

The film itself opened in 2014 to strong reviews, with critics praising its restraint and emotional weight rather than conventional jump scares5. The meme reframing began in the summer of 2016, when rumors first spread on Tumblr and Twitter that the monster was queer1. The spark was a screenshot, which some users claimed came from Netflix's own interface, showing The Babadook categorized as an LGBT movie1.

No single creator can be credited with the meme format, and the earliest Tumblr posts that pushed the idea are not individually archived in the available sources3. Mashable traced the first wave to anonymous Tumblr posts and screenshots shared in 2016, which did not break out widely until the following year1. On the costume side, Katie Dippold's Halloween-2015 Babadook photo went viral after she shared it on Twitter in 2016, giving the character a second, unrelated meme life4.

How It Spread

After simmering on Tumblr through late 2016, the gay Babadook meme hit critical mass during Pride Month 20171. On June 7, 2017, Mashable published a piece declaring 'the Ba-Ba-DOOOOOK is gay,' walking through the Tumblr screenshots and the running list of 'evidence,' including the monster's dandy-ish top hat and basement-dwelling lifestyle1. Teen Vogue followed with its own June 2017 writeup framing the character as a Pride mascot and rounding up fan jokes about his fashion choices and hypothetical Drag Race run3.

The meme moved fast across Twitter in June 2017, where users posted edits placing the Babadook against rainbow backgrounds and wrote fake first-person captions in his voice1. Mashable noted that Netflix had, by the time of its article, stopped classifying the film under LGBT, but the correction did little to slow the bit1. Teen Vogue acknowledged the meme had cooled briefly in February 2017 before Pride month revived it3.

The Katie Dippold costume thread followed a different arc. Dippold told New York Magazine in October 2016 that she had worn the full Babadook outfit, including a Goodwill peacoat, a Halloween-store hat, and face paint, to a casual gathering the previous Halloween4. Her tweet about the social anxiety of overdressing circulated widely enough that she gave a full interview about it a year later4. Specific fan posts beyond the Dippold tweet and the Netflix screenshots are not individually archived in the available sources13.

Timeline

2014

Jennifer Kent's The Babadook premieres and earns strong reviews, making roughly 2.5 times its budget.

2015-10

Comedy writer Katie Dippold wears a full Babadook costume to a casual Halloween party, later recounted in New York Magazine.

2016

Rumors begin on Tumblr and Twitter that the Babadook is queer, based on screenshots of Netflix's LGBT category listing.

2016-10

New York Magazine publishes Dippold's story about her viral Babadook-costume tweet.

2017-02

The gay-Babadook meme sees a brief Twitter spike before dying down again.

2017-06-07

Mashable publishes 'Happy Pride Month everyone: the Ba-Ba-DOOOOOK is gay,' pushing the meme fully mainstream.

2017-06

Teen Vogue covers the Babadook as a Pride icon, cataloging fan jokes about his fashion and Drag Race potential.

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