What is Those Were the Glory Days?

It is a reaction image macro built from a shot of Mr. Incredible in The Incredibles (2004) staring up at a wall of newspaper clippings from his superhero past, used to joke about personal nostalgia.

Where did Those Were the Glory Days come from?

The frame comes from Pixar's The Incredibles, released November 5, 2004, and was first praised online in a 2009 io9 piece about the 'wall of newspaper clippings' film cliche.

What does Those Were the Glory Days mean?

It is a sincere-ironic bit about mourning a trivial past achievement, like an old viral upvote or a forgotten video game, as if it were a vanished heroic career.

How do you use Those Were the Glory Days?

People typically caption the Mr. Incredible screenshot with a specific lost memory, or photoshop the framed clippings on the wall to show the thing they are nostalgic for, such as old Minecraft Let's Plays.

Is Those Were the Glory Days still popular?

It is a classic Mr. Incredible reaction image that still circulates alongside other Incredibles-based templates documented on Know Your Meme.

Those Were the Glory Days

2018reaction imageclassic

Published October 3, 2026

A still from the 2004 Pixar film The Incredibles showing Mr. Incredible gazing at a wall of superhero newspaper clippings became a Reddit-driven reaction image in 2018. The frame turned into a go-to template for mock-sentimental posts about faded internet glory, old video games, and childhood memories.

nostalgia memes pixar memes reaction memes exploitable templates subreddit origin memes

Overview

Those Were the Glory Days works as a two-part sadness bit. The screen grab shows Mr. Incredible, voiced by Craig T. Nelson, standing in his home office and staring up at framed newspaper clippings celebrating his superhero past3. Posters pair that image with a top-text caption describing some specific small victory from their own history that will never happen again, usually a Reddit upvote count, an old YouTube favorite, or a childhood game.

The image also fuels a sub-format where the newspaper covers on the wall are photoshopped to show whatever the poster is nostalgic for, swapping the Incredibles magazine art for Minecraft screenshots, old memes, or video game box art1. The art direction of those in-universe magazine covers was praised by io9 as 'absolutely frame worthy,' which is part of why the shot edits so cleanly4.

Tone is key. The meme is sincere-ironic: the thing being mourned is almost always trivial, but the dramatic Pixar framing sells it as a tragedy2.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

The Incredibles (film source) / Reddit (viral spread)

Date

2018

The source frame is from The Incredibles, the Brad Bird-directed Pixar film released in the United States on November 5, 20043. In the scene, Mr. Incredible sits in a cubicle at his insurance job and looks up at a wall of mounted newspaper and magazine clippings from his hero days, a moment that Pixar used to set up his midlife frustration.

The shot was flagged online as early as 2009, when io9 included it in a roundup on the 'Wall of Newspaper Clippings' film cliche and singled out the Incredible magazine covers for praise4. The still began circulating as a standalone image on Twitter on January 5, 2016, when user @Brassrhino posted it with the caption 'mistah incwedible'5. The reaction-image usage that defined the meme did not take off until 2018 on Reddit.

How It Spread

The image jumped from scattered posts into the reaction-image rotation in late October 2018. On October 25, 2018, Redditor xyzBrianDorgan posted the still to r/PewdiepieSubmissions captioned 'When most of your memes never exceed 10 upvotes but you remember the time when you got 1.3 thousand upvotes on a single meme,' pulling more than 460 points1. The post was mirrored to r/MemeEconomy the same day, where it picked up over 9,600 points and 550-plus comments2.

Within weeks the format jumped to r/dankmemes. On November 23, 2018, user TheDarthKnightBegins posted a variant captioned 'When you see an old Minecraft let's play in your recommended videos,' which cleared 26,000 points and 465 comments6. That post helped lock in the nostalgia angle, Minecraft Let's Plays, old YouTube, forgotten games, as the dominant subject matter.

Know Your Meme documented the format and the photoshopped-clippings variant in its entry for the image, grouping it with the broader wave of Mr. Incredible reaction images from The Incredibles2.

Timeline

2004-11-05

The Incredibles releases in the United States, including the scene of Mr. Incredible looking up at his wall of newspaper clippings[3].

2009-12-15

Io9 features the shot in a post on the 'Wall of Newspaper Clippings' film cliche, calling the fake magazine art 'frame worthy'[4].

2016-01-05

Twitter user @Brassrhino posts the still with the caption 'mistah incwedible'[5].

2018-10-25

Redditor xyzBrianDorgan posts the image to r/PewdiepieSubmissions as a reaction to lost upvote glory, and the repost on r/MemeEconomy clears 9,600 points[1].

2018-11-23

Redditor TheDarthKnightBegins posts an old-Minecraft-Let's-Play variant on r/dankmemes that reaches 26,000 points[6].

How to Use This Meme

The common convention is to pair the Mr. Incredible wall-of-clippings screenshot with a caption that frames some mundane past achievement or lost pleasure as a lost golden age. Top-text captions often start with 'When...' and name something trivially specific, like an old viral post, a defunct game server, or a canceled show. The photoshopped variant typically keeps the pose and lighting intact and only swaps the framed clippings for images of whatever the poster is nostalgic for.