What Kind of Sorcery Is This? — Professor Snape pressed against a window with caption 'WHAT KIND OF SORCERY IS THIS'

What Kind of Sorcery Is This?

2008catchphraseclassic

Published October 5, 2026

What Kind of Sorcery Is This?, also written as What Kind of Wizardry Is This?, is a catchphrase people slap on anything baffling or inexplicable. It bounced from mid-century TV scripts into Harry Potter fanfiction in 2008 before image-sharing sites like MemeCenter picked it up as a go-to caption for optical illusions and rage comics12.

catchphrase memes reaction memes rage comics optical illusion memes pre digital memes

Overview

What Kind of Sorcery Is This? works as hyperbolic shock, pretending that whatever just happened is literal witchcraft because no ordinary explanation will do. Users pair it with optical illusions, physics-defying GIFs, weird photographs, and strange animal behavior, treating the mundane like a magical mystery1. The wording shifts between 'sorcery,' 'wizardry,' and the shorter 'What sorcery is this?,' but the beat is the same mock-medieval astonishment.

On image boards and comic sites, the line often shows up as the punchline of a rage comic panel or as the overlaid caption on a trippy image2. Urban Dictionary's own entry frames it as something you say 'when you don't have a clue what you've just witnessed' and reach for a supernatural answer out of ignorance3. That self-aware, slightly dramatic register is why it stuck as a reaction caption rather than fading into regular slang.

Origin & Background

Platform
Fanfiction.net / MemeCenter (viral spread)
Date
2008

The exact origin of the phrase predates the internet. The Joker, played by Cesar Romero, uttered a version of it on the January 27th, 1966 episode of Batman, and Goliath used it on an October 25th, 1994 episode of Gargoyles45.

Online, the earliest documented appearance is a February 3rd, 2008 Harry Potter fanfiction titled 'Order of the Phoenix Rewritten,' posted by Fanfiction.net user Potterfan3002, where a character delivers the line in dialogue6. From there, bloggers started adopting it as a reaction caption, with WordPress user behula using the phrase in an April 1st, 2011 post about a woman whose appearance they found inexplicable7.

How It Spread

The catchphrase crossed from blogs into meme culture in 2012 on MemeCenter, where one user slapped it over a wall-warping optical illusion image1. Soon after, another MemeCenter post folded the line into the Oh Crap rage comic template, turning the wizard-speak into the punchline of a panel sequence2.

By June 12th, 2013, Urban Dictionary user procletnika had logged a formal definition, calling it the thing you say 'when you appeal to a supernatural explanation, because you are too ignorant to be aware of the scientific explanation'3. The entry picked up more than 60 upvotes over six years, a quiet marker that the line was still in rotation long after rage comics peaked.

Unlike image macros tied to a single screenshot, the catchphrase stayed format-agnostic. It still gets attached to magic-trick videos, glitch GIFs, and inexplicable product photos, carried along as a stock caption rather than any one image8.

Timeline

1966-01-27

Cesar Romero's Joker uses a version of the line on an episode of Batman.

1994-10-25

Goliath says the phrase on an episode of Gargoyles.

2008-02-03

Fanfiction.net user Potterfan3002 posts the earliest known online use in a Harry Potter fanfic.

2011-04-01

WordPress user behula uses the phrase as a blog caption.

2012

MemeCenter users attach it to an optical illusion image and an Oh Crap rage comic.

2013-06-12

Urban Dictionary user procletnika adds a formal definition of the phrase.

Frequently Asked Questions