The Council Will Decide Your Fate — Five people in dark room with lit traffic cones on their heads

The Council Will Decide Your Fate

2018image macroclassic

Published October 1, 2026

The Council Will Decide Your Fate is a 2018 image macro built from a photo of five people standing in a row with orange traffic cones over their heads. After hitting Reddit in December 2018, it became the go-to reaction image for mock tribunals, cult vibes and oddball group verdicts.

image macro memes reaction memes exploitable templates absurdist humor memes subreddit origin memes

Overview

The Council Will Decide Your Fate is an image macro of five people standing shoulder to shoulder in a line, each with a bright orange traffic cone pulled down over their head1. The faceless, uniform posture reads as a solemn panel of judges, which is the entire joke, pointing a photo of silly cone-wearers at any situation that calls for a verdict4.

Captions typically cast the group as rulers of some low-stakes or absurd community deciding whether an outsider is weird enough, cringe enough or loyal enough to belong2. The humor comes from the mismatch between the serious tribunal framing and the obvious fact that these are just people with cones on their heads4.

Origin & Background

Platform
Reddit (r/hmmm origin, r/dankmemes viral spread)
Creator
Unknown
Date
2018

On December 13th, 2018, Redditor BermudaRhombus1 posted the original photo to r/hmmm, where it drew more than 800 points over the following five months1. The image spread on the same day when Redditor Mickychon reposted it to r/dankmemes with the caption "When you and da bois are tyring to decide if the new guy is werid enough to join the squad," a post that pulled in over 12,000 upvotes across six months2.

The original photograph itself predates the meme and no confirmed photographer is credited in the source material, so the meme's creator is best described as unknown, with Mickychon's dankmemes caption being the earliest known viral format4.

How It Spread

The format jumped subreddits fast. On December 14th, 2018, one day after the original post, Redditor Croftt took the image to r/me_irl and used it to represent the "seven people who sort by new," a post that collected over 4,100 points3. That framing, treating the cone-headed line as the self-appointed overlords of a given niche, locked in the template going forward4.

On April 6th, 2019, Redditor Soulofcinder9 posted a version to r/dankmemes that cast the group as the Reddit community itself, earning more than 1,300 points in a month5. On May 12th, 2019, Redditor THEFIRESTORMER posted a version to r/memes aimed at the Christian Minecraft community, which pulled in 10,900 points in two days6. The pattern across these posts is the same: pick any insular group, point the cone council at them, let the implied verdict do the work4.

Timeline

2018-12-13

Redditor BermudaRhombus1 posts the original traffic-cone photo to r/hmmm.

2018-12-13

Redditor Mickychon posts the "da bois" caption version to r/dankmemes, eventually passing 12,000 upvotes.

2018-12-14

Redditor Croftt posts the image to r/me_irl mocking the "seven people who sort by new."

2019-04-06

Redditor Soulofcinder9 posts a r/dankmemes version comparing the group to the Reddit community.

2019-05-12

Redditor THEFIRESTORMER posts a r/memes version aimed at the Christian Minecraft community, hitting 10,900 points in two days.

Frequently Asked Questions