This Website Is Free — Mr. Incredible staring at a wall of framed photos and newspaper clippings with caption 'Those were the glory days'

This Website Is Free

2012catchphraseclassic

Published October 3, 2026

This Website Is Free is a Twitter catchphrase slapped onto screenshots of strange, embarrassing, or confidently wrong interactions found on the platform. First posted bare by @dmonz2000 in April 2012, it took off as a reaction format in 2017 and 2018 and became one of the defining ways Twitter users mocked their own feed.

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Overview

The format pairs a screenshot, usually a reply chain or a confidently wrong post, with the deadpan caption 'This website is free' or the variant 'This website costs zero dollars'1. The joke lands when the exchange is so strange, embarrassing, or entertaining that paying nothing to witness it feels like a bug rather than a feature.

Common targets include public figures contradicting their own old tweets, strangers making obvious errors in sports or art criticism, and brand accounts arguing with each other1. The Daily Dot described it as a way to point out moments 'when Twitter seems too good to be free', while also noting the darker tradeoff that users pay with data and emotional wear1.

Origin & Background

Platform
Twitter
Creator
@dmonz2000
Date
2012

The earliest known usage traces to Twitter user @dmonz2000, who posted the bare line 'This website is free.' on April 16, 20122. The post was not attached to a screenshot and did not reference anything in particular, so it read more as a stray observation than the setup for a reaction format7.

The template as it is used today, caption plus screenshot, took shape years later as Twitter users borrowed the phrase for genuinely bizarre exchanges they stumbled onto in the wild.

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How It Spread

On January 20, 2015, Twitter user @fergoe retweeted an image of former U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz photoshopped onto the Samuel Adams beer logo with the caption 'This website is free. Never forget.'3. That July 31, @AzeemTeam posted a screenshot of CBS sports commentator Pete Prisco in a Twitter spat, writing 'Dog I am CRYING. I can't believe this website is free.'4.

The format broke out in 2017 when @god_hates_jags posted a pair of Tomi Lahren tweets showing her contradicting her own position, pulling in more than 43,000 retweets and 99,000 likes5. In late February 2018, @nrrrdcore shared an exchange where a man dismissed the idea of notable female sculptors with 'none come to mind', only to be corrected that the piece under discussion was carved by a Chinese woman, picking up over 20,000 retweets and 70,000 likes6.

About three weeks later, on March 22, 2018, The Daily Dot ran a piece documenting the trend and listing more examples, including a man who thought LaCroix was a philosopher instead of a brand of sparkling water1.

Timeline

2012-04-16

Twitter user @dmonz2000 posts the bare line 'This website is free.' with no attached screenshot.

2015-01-20

@fergoe retweets the Ernest Moniz Samuel Adams edit captioned 'This website is free. Never forget.'

2015-07-31

@AzeemTeam captions a Pete Prisco screenshot 'Dog I am CRYING. I can't believe this website is free.'

2017-01-09

@god_hates_jags posts contradicting Tomi Lahren tweets, which pass 43,000 retweets.

2018-02-01

@nrrrdcore shares the female sculptor correction thread, which clears 20,000 retweets.

2018-03-22

The Daily Dot publishes an article on the catchphrase and its format.

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Frequently Asked Questions