Obi-Wan Kenobi in desert robes with subtitle 'Well, of course I know him. He's me.'

Well, Of Course I Know Him. He's Me.

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Published October 5, 2026

"Well, Of Course I Know Him. He's Me." is a line Alec Guinness delivers as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the 1977 film Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope, long before internet jokers got their hands on it. Starting in 2014, Redditors began pairing the clip with captions in which someone admits, usually unflatteringly, that the person in question is actually themselves. The setup grew into a dependable Star Wars reaction format across Reddit and Instagram.

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Overview

The format pairs a screenshot or GIF of Ben Kenobi delivering the line with setup text framing an awkward or incriminating question. The joke works because Obi-Wan's calm admission reads as deadpan confession, which fits captions where the speaker owns up to being a flasher, a sex offender, or Palpatine himself manipulating the Galactic Senate13. Variations sometimes swap Kenobi's face for other villains or public figures while keeping Luke's confused question intact.

The template's charm is its minimalism, just two lines of dialogue carrying the whole gag. It settled in as a Star Wars-themed cousin to the broader "it was me the entire time" joke, and most posts simply swap the specific crime or absurd admission in the top panel4.

Origin & Background

Platform
Star Wars: A New Hope (1977) / Reddit (meme format, 2014)
Creator
StapMyVitals
Date
2014

The exchange comes from Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope, which premiered on May 25, 1977. Luke Skywalker asks Ben Kenobi whether he knows an "Obi-Wan Kenobi," and the elder Jedi casually confirms he is Obi-Wan2. George Lucas and Lucasfilm produced the film; the meme format itself was created by Redditors, not by Lucasfilm.

The scene sat unused as a reaction image for 37 years until Redditor StapMyVitals posted the clip to /r/shittyreactiongifs on July 14, 2014, under the title "MRW the police are appealing for information about a local flasher"1. That submission is the earliest documented use of the line as a reaction format4.

How It Spread

On April 1, 2017, the Instagram account @starwars.humor posted a version with Senator Palpatine's face edited over Kenobi's and the caption "When someone asks you about the Senate," riffing on the I Am the Senate meme. The post picked up more than 3,400 likes over the following eight months3. Later that summer, on July 30, @starwarsonly ran its own variant in which a woman greets a neighbor who turns out to be a registered sex offender, drawing over 6,100 likes in six months5.

In September 2017, MemeCenter user Ice captioned the scene "When the police ask if you know the local rapist"6. That same image was reshared to /r/OTMemes on December 19, 2017, where it cleared 2,100 points at 89% upvoted inside 24 hours7. The 2017 run across Star Wars-themed Instagram pages and Reddit's prequel-leaning subreddits is what pushed the line from a one-off joke into a recurring format4.

Timeline

1977-05-25

Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope premieres, with Alec Guinness delivering the line as Obi-Wan Kenobi.

2014-07-14

Redditor StapMyVitals posts the clip to /r/shittyreactiongifs with the flasher caption, the earliest known use as a reaction format.

2017-04-01

Instagram account @starwars.humor publishes the Palpatine "ask you about the Senate" edit.

2017-07-30

@starwarsonly posts the registered sex offender neighbor variant.

2017-09

MemeCenter user Ice publishes the "local rapist" variant.

2017-12-19

The MemeCenter image is reshared to /r/OTMemes and clears 2,100 points within 24 hours.

How to Use This Meme

Common convention is to place a question or scenario in the top panel (often phrased as "When someone asks you about..." or "MRW the cops ask..."), followed by the Kenobi screenshot as the punchline. The caption typically has the speaker admitting that the person being discussed is themselves, with the admission being embarrassing, criminal, or absurd1.

Frequently Asked Questions