Two Buttons

2014image macroclassic

Also known as: Two Buttons Meme · TB · Two Buttons · TWO BUTTONS

Two Buttons is a 2014 image-macro meme created by animator Jake Clark, featuring a sweating man choosing between two red buttons labeled with contradictory options.

"Two Buttons" is an exploitable webcomic meme featuring a sweating man agonizing over which of two red buttons to press, each labeled with a contradictory or equally unappealing option. Created by animator Jake Clark on Tumblr in October 2014, the format took off on Imgur and Reddit in early 2015 and became one of the internet's most reliable templates for expressing the stress of impossible choices3. Its dead-simple structure and universal theme of decision paralysis have kept it in heavy rotation for over a decade.

exploitable templateswebcomic memestwo panel memeschoice dilemma memes

Overview

The meme uses a two-panel layout. The top panel shows a hand hovering over two large red buttons, each with a user-written label. The bottom panel shows a man in visible distress, sweating and wiping his brow, clearly unable to pick between the two options6. The humor comes from the labels on the buttons, which are typically contradictory beliefs held by the same person or group, two equally tempting (or terrible) choices, or a setup that exposes hypocrisy.

What makes the format work is its visual clarity. There's no clutter. Two buttons, a hand, a sweating guy. You get the joke instantly, even as a tiny thumbnail in a feed6. The exaggerated sweating sells the emotional stakes, turning even trivial dilemmas into high-drama comedy.

On October 25, 2014, animator Jake Clark posted the original comic to his Tumblr blog3. The comic showed a character sweating while trying to choose between two buttons labeled "BE A DICK" and "DON'T BE A DICK"6. Clark drew inspiration from two sources: the "Sweating Towel Guy" illustration (a popular reaction image of a man mopping his forehead) and the character Hank Nova from the video game *TimeSplitters 2*4. Over the next two years, the Tumblr post picked up over 9,700 notes3.

Clark is a professional animator who later worked on the critically acclaimed game *Cuphead* and at Innersloth, the studio behind *Among Us*1.

Origin & Background

Platform
Webcomic/social media
Creator
Jake Clark
Date
2016

On October 25, 2014, animator Jake Clark posted the original comic to his Tumblr blog. The comic showed a character sweating while trying to choose between two buttons labeled "BE A DICK" and "DON'T BE A DICK". Clark drew inspiration from two sources: the "Sweating Towel Guy" illustration (a popular reaction image of a man mopping his forehead) and the character Hank Nova from the video game *TimeSplitters 2*. Over the next two years, the Tumblr post picked up over 9,700 notes.

Clark is a professional animator who later worked on the critically acclaimed game *Cuphead* and at Innersloth, the studio behind *Among Us*.

How It Spread

The comic's breakout came on February 1, 2015, when Imgur user Robban39 uploaded it under the title "Daily Struggle." That post racked up over 1.27 million views. Within hours, Redditor AcerRubrum cross-posted it to r/funny, where it pulled 3,738 upvotes at 91% approval.

From there, users figured out the template's real power: swapping the button labels. On March 29, 2016, a version titled "Tumblr's dilemma" hit r/funny with buttons reading "People can be born as the wrong gender" and "Gender is a social construct," earning 4,400+ upvotes and 775 comments. In June 2016, r/Libertarian got a version with "cops are evil and racist" vs. "you don't need a gun because you have police," pulling 3,500+ votes.

By this point, meme generator sites had added the Two Buttons template, and the format spread across platforms. The meme saw a second wave of creativity in November 2020 when visual artist Petirep drew a new variation where both buttons are pressed at once, followed by a thumbs-up. This "why not both?" twist was posted to Twitter and r/MemeEconomy on November 11, 2020. A Reddit post using this new version hit r/dankmemes on December 11, 2020, scoring over 24,000 upvotes and 20 awards.

Platforms

TwitterRedditInstagramFacebookTumblr

Timeline

2016-01-14

Entry published on Know Your Meme

2025-01-01

Two Buttons is still actively used and shared across platforms

View on Google Trends

How to Use This Meme

The format is straightforward:

1

Find a dilemma. Think of two options that are contradictory, both appealing, or both terrible. The best versions expose a real tension, like wanting to eat healthy but also wanting pizza.

2

Label the buttons. Write one option on each red button in the top panel.

3

Let the sweating man do the rest. The bottom panel's panicked character delivers the punchline without any extra text needed.

4

Optional: use the Petirep variant. If the joke is that someone embraces both contradictions, use the 2020 "press both buttons" version instead.

Create Your Own

Cultural Impact

The Two Buttons meme crossed into institutional territory in ways most memes never do. In 2020, Dalhousie University used the format in an online assignment about academic integrity, with buttons reading "Cheat on the online final to increase GPA" vs. "Actually deserve my degree".

More notably, the meme became the subject of a formal ruling by Facebook's Oversight Board. In December 2020, a user posted a version with a Turkish flag over the character's face and buttons reading "The Armenian Genocide is a lie" and "The Armenians were terrorists that deserved it." Facebook removed the post under its Hate Speech policy. The Oversight Board overturned that decision, ruling that the Two Buttons format inherently "contrasts two different options not to show support for them, but to highlight potential contradictions". The Board ordered the comment restored, essentially ruling that the meme's structure is satirical by design. This was one of the first times a meme format's intended rhetorical function was formally analyzed by a content moderation body.

Fun Facts

Jake Clark's artistic career connects two of the biggest gaming memes of the 2010s: he animated for *Cuphead* and later joined Innersloth, the studio behind *Among Us*.

The Imgur upload that made the meme go viral gave it the name "Daily Struggle," which stuck as an alternate title even though Clark never used that name.

Facebook's Oversight Board used the meme's format as legal reasoning, arguing the two-button structure is inherently satirical rather than endorsing either option.

The meme is sometimes confused with the "Sweating Towel Guy" reaction image, which was actually one of Clark's original inspirations.

Over a decade later, the template is still actively used on Reddit, Twitter, and Instagram, making it one of the longest-running exploitable formats from the mid-2010s.

Derivatives & Variations

Three-button and multi-button variations showing more complex choices

A variation of Two Buttons

(2017)

Gender-swapped versions with different people

A variation of Two Buttons

(2017)

Variations using different anxious poses or expressions

A variation of Two Buttons

(2017)

One-button pressing variations showing indecision about action

A variation of Two Buttons

(2017)

Button variations with humorous or absurd options

A variation of Two Buttons

(2017)

Frequently Asked Questions

Two Buttons

2014image macroclassic

Also known as: Two Buttons Meme · TB · Two Buttons · TWO BUTTONS

Two Buttons is a 2014 image-macro meme created by animator Jake Clark, featuring a sweating man choosing between two red buttons labeled with contradictory options.

"Two Buttons" is an exploitable webcomic meme featuring a sweating man agonizing over which of two red buttons to press, each labeled with a contradictory or equally unappealing option. Created by animator Jake Clark on Tumblr in October 2014, the format took off on Imgur and Reddit in early 2015 and became one of the internet's most reliable templates for expressing the stress of impossible choices. Its dead-simple structure and universal theme of decision paralysis have kept it in heavy rotation for over a decade.

exploitable templates webcomic memes two panel memes choice dilemma memes

Overview

The meme uses a two-panel layout. The top panel shows a hand hovering over two large red buttons, each with a user-written label. The bottom panel shows a man in visible distress, sweating and wiping his brow, clearly unable to pick between the two options. The humor comes from the labels on the buttons, which are typically contradictory beliefs held by the same person or group, two equally tempting (or terrible) choices, or a setup that exposes hypocrisy.

What makes the format work is its visual clarity. There's no clutter. Two buttons, a hand, a sweating guy. You get the joke instantly, even as a tiny thumbnail in a feed. The exaggerated sweating sells the emotional stakes, turning even trivial dilemmas into high-drama comedy.

On October 25, 2014, animator Jake Clark posted the original comic to his Tumblr blog. The comic showed a character sweating while trying to choose between two buttons labeled "BE A DICK" and "DON'T BE A DICK". Clark drew inspiration from two sources: the "Sweating Towel Guy" illustration (a popular reaction image of a man mopping his forehead) and the character Hank Nova from the video game *TimeSplitters 2*. Over the next two years, the Tumblr post picked up over 9,700 notes.

Clark is a professional animator who later worked on the critically acclaimed game *Cuphead* and at Innersloth, the studio behind *Among Us*.

Origin & Background

Platform
Webcomic/social media
Creator
Jake Clark
Date
2016

On October 25, 2014, animator Jake Clark posted the original comic to his Tumblr blog. The comic showed a character sweating while trying to choose between two buttons labeled "BE A DICK" and "DON'T BE A DICK". Clark drew inspiration from two sources: the "Sweating Towel Guy" illustration (a popular reaction image of a man mopping his forehead) and the character Hank Nova from the video game *TimeSplitters 2*. Over the next two years, the Tumblr post picked up over 9,700 notes.

Clark is a professional animator who later worked on the critically acclaimed game *Cuphead* and at Innersloth, the studio behind *Among Us*.

How It Spread

The comic's breakout came on February 1, 2015, when Imgur user Robban39 uploaded it under the title "Daily Struggle." That post racked up over 1.27 million views. Within hours, Redditor AcerRubrum cross-posted it to r/funny, where it pulled 3,738 upvotes at 91% approval.

From there, users figured out the template's real power: swapping the button labels. On March 29, 2016, a version titled "Tumblr's dilemma" hit r/funny with buttons reading "People can be born as the wrong gender" and "Gender is a social construct," earning 4,400+ upvotes and 775 comments. In June 2016, r/Libertarian got a version with "cops are evil and racist" vs. "you don't need a gun because you have police," pulling 3,500+ votes.

By this point, meme generator sites had added the Two Buttons template, and the format spread across platforms. The meme saw a second wave of creativity in November 2020 when visual artist Petirep drew a new variation where both buttons are pressed at once, followed by a thumbs-up. This "why not both?" twist was posted to Twitter and r/MemeEconomy on November 11, 2020. A Reddit post using this new version hit r/dankmemes on December 11, 2020, scoring over 24,000 upvotes and 20 awards.

Platforms

TwitterRedditInstagramFacebookTumblr

Timeline

2016-01-14

Entry published on Know Your Meme

2025-01-01

Two Buttons is still actively used and shared across platforms

View on Google Trends

How to Use This Meme

The format is straightforward:

1

Find a dilemma. Think of two options that are contradictory, both appealing, or both terrible. The best versions expose a real tension, like wanting to eat healthy but also wanting pizza.

2

Label the buttons. Write one option on each red button in the top panel.

3

Let the sweating man do the rest. The bottom panel's panicked character delivers the punchline without any extra text needed.

4

Optional: use the Petirep variant. If the joke is that someone embraces both contradictions, use the 2020 "press both buttons" version instead.

Create Your Own

Cultural Impact

The Two Buttons meme crossed into institutional territory in ways most memes never do. In 2020, Dalhousie University used the format in an online assignment about academic integrity, with buttons reading "Cheat on the online final to increase GPA" vs. "Actually deserve my degree".

More notably, the meme became the subject of a formal ruling by Facebook's Oversight Board. In December 2020, a user posted a version with a Turkish flag over the character's face and buttons reading "The Armenian Genocide is a lie" and "The Armenians were terrorists that deserved it." Facebook removed the post under its Hate Speech policy. The Oversight Board overturned that decision, ruling that the Two Buttons format inherently "contrasts two different options not to show support for them, but to highlight potential contradictions". The Board ordered the comment restored, essentially ruling that the meme's structure is satirical by design. This was one of the first times a meme format's intended rhetorical function was formally analyzed by a content moderation body.

Fun Facts

Jake Clark's artistic career connects two of the biggest gaming memes of the 2010s: he animated for *Cuphead* and later joined Innersloth, the studio behind *Among Us*.

The Imgur upload that made the meme go viral gave it the name "Daily Struggle," which stuck as an alternate title even though Clark never used that name.

Facebook's Oversight Board used the meme's format as legal reasoning, arguing the two-button structure is inherently satirical rather than endorsing either option.

The meme is sometimes confused with the "Sweating Towel Guy" reaction image, which was actually one of Clark's original inspirations.

Over a decade later, the template is still actively used on Reddit, Twitter, and Instagram, making it one of the longest-running exploitable formats from the mid-2010s.

Derivatives & Variations

Three-button and multi-button variations showing more complex choices

A variation of Two Buttons

(2017)

Gender-swapped versions with different people

A variation of Two Buttons

(2017)

Variations using different anxious poses or expressions

A variation of Two Buttons

(2017)

One-button pressing variations showing indecision about action

A variation of Two Buttons

(2017)

Button variations with humorous or absurd options

A variation of Two Buttons

(2017)

Frequently Asked Questions