What is What Was He Cooking?

A reaction image and catchphrase built from a YouTube thumbnail by New Rockstars showing Thanos apparently cooking during an Avengers: Endgame scene, used online as a punchline for spectacular mistakes.

Where did What Was He Cooking come from?

It comes from a November 29th, 2020 New Rockstars video, "THANOS Death Scene in Avengers Endgame: What Was He Cooking? | BQ Bites," whose thumbnail overshadowed the video itself and turned into a reaction image.

What does What Was He Cooking mean?

It's a punchier version of "what was he thinking?" used to react when someone makes a baffling, self-defeating mistake, as when @VinceFGC applied it to a July 2022 King Dedede clip.

How do you use What Was He Cooking?

Reply to a clip or screenshot of a spectacular blunder with either the Thanos thumbnail or the caption "what was he cooking?" over the footage.

Is What Was He Cooking still popular?

It saw heavy use through 2022, especially in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate clip accounts like @Endeavor_ssbu using it on August 4th, 2022; more recent usage isn't well-documented in the sources.

What Was He Cooking

2020catchphraseclassic

Published August 12, 2026

"What Was He Cooking?" is a reaction image and catchphrase pulled from a 2020 New Rockstars YouTube thumbnail of Thanos apparently preparing food in Avengers: Endgame. It spread through late 2021 and 2022 as a punchier stand-in for "what was he thinking?" and became especially popular in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate clip culture.

reaction memes catchphrase memes youtube thumbnail memes thanos memes smash bros memes

Overview

"What Was He Cooking?" is a reaction image and catchphrase built from a YouTube thumbnail by film-analysis channel New Rockstars2, showing Thanos apparently at a stove during an Avengers: Endgame scene next to the bold yellow caption "WHAT WAS HE COOKING?"1.

The wording works as a punchier stand-in for "what was he thinking?", typically deployed when someone makes a spectacularly baffling error. It sees especially heavy use with Super Smash Bros. Ultimate clip-sharing accounts, where "what was he cooking?" punctuates footage of players throwing away stocks on bizarre inputs or misreads3.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

YouTube (thumbnail) / Twitter (viral spread)

Creator

New Rockstars

Date

2020

On November 29th, 2020, New Rockstars uploaded "THANOS Death Scene in Avengers Endgame: What Was He Cooking? | BQ Bites" as an installment of its "BQ Bites" video-analysis segment, with the hosts theorizing about what Thanos was making for breakfast in a scene from Avengers: Endgame1. The video itself sat around 253,000 views nearly two years after posting, but its thumbnail, cropped tight on Thanos beside the yellow caption, was reposted to iFunny on December 1st, 2020 and became the piece that actually traveled3.

How It Spread

The thumbnail sat quiet for about a year before it started moving as a reaction. On December 13th, 2021, Twitter user @nagistic posted a screenshot of the thumbnail next to the video's view count with the caption "this infuriates me for some reason," pulling over 2,900 retweets and 44,000 likes before the tweet was later deleted3.

Fighting-game and competitive-gaming communities picked up the format from there. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate players carried the wording into their clip culture without even needing the image: @VinceFGC captioned a July 26th, 2022 video of a King Dedede standing motionless into a Hero setup4, and @Endeavor_ssbu used the phrase on August 4th, 2022 for Roy player Kola whiffing an off-stage spike into an early lost stock5.

▶

Watch Video

How to Use This Meme

The format typically works as a one-line reply to a clip or screenshot where someone makes a strange, self-defeating choice4. Posters often drop the Thanos thumbnail under the offending post directly, or type "what was he cooking?" as a caption on the clip itself5.