Man in headphones with a drawn-on handlebar mustache under the caption 'What's the shape of Italy?'

What's the Shape of Italy?

2009catchphraseclassic

Published October 15, 2026

What's the Shape of Italy? is a bait-and-switch question Xbox Live party hosts used in the late 2000s to trick a newcomer into saying 'a boot,' which doubled as slang for being kicked from the party. HLGDecoy filmed the earliest documented version in April 20092, and by 2020 the gag was being retold in viral tweets and TikTok sketches about Call of Duty lobbies3.

bait and switch memes gaming prank memes trolling memes late 2000s memes

Overview

What's the Shape of Italy? works as a verbal trap played inside Xbox Live party chat. The host invites someone new, asks them the geography question, and waits for the answer 'a boot,' which is also slang for kicking a player from the lobby3. The moment the mark says the word, the host boots them, usually while the rest of the party laughs on mic.

The setup has close variants that rely on the same pun. 'What does a cowboy wear on his feet?' and 'What do you do with a soccer ball?' both steer the target toward saying 'boot' or 'kick,' and party hosts sometimes string two questions together to spring the trap1. The target of the joke is almost always a younger or newer player whose eagerness to answer marks them as gullible3.

In later years the format became a nostalgia bit rather than an active prank. Tweets and TikToks replay the ambush as a shared memory of 2000s Call of Duty lobbies, with creators acting out both roles or showing how they learned to dodge the question24.

Origin & Background

Platform
Xbox Live / YouTube
Creator
HLGDecoy
Date
2009

The earliest known recording of the prank came on April 28, 2009, when YouTuber HLGDecoy uploaded a clip titled 'what's the shape of italy'1. In the video, HLGDecoy and his Xbox friends invite a kid into their party and run through a few lead-in questions before asking the title question. The kid answers 'like a triangle,' so the host follows up with 'What does a cowboy wear on his feet?' The kid says 'a boot' and gets kicked from the party. The upload was still live more than a decade later with around 30,300 views1.

Know Your Meme credits HLGDecoy's clip as the first known piece of media documenting the gag, though the prank itself likely spread through Xbox Live party chat before anyone recorded it3. More YouTube uploads followed, including an August 20, 2011 iteration by xXxred7headxXx that logged roughly 6,200 views over the next twelve years5.

How It Spread

The joke lived mostly inside Xbox parties for years before migrating to text-based platforms. On May 16, 2014, Twitter user @Facityy posted what is cited as the first known tweet referencing the gag, writing, "'What's the shape of Italy?' *kicks player from game* *laughs* Me, 2007"6. The tweet collected over 60 likes across the following nine years1.

The bigger viral moment came on February 13, 2020, when Twitter user @Class posted a joke about falling for the question while playing Call of Duty as a kid. That post picked up roughly 22,600 likes within three years and reintroduced the format to a new audience that treated it as online-gaming nostalgia3. TikTok creators followed with sketches built on the related 'soccer ball' variant, including a November 1, 2020 video from @c00kiek1ng captioned 'When you try and avoid getting kicked from the party,' which reached about 2.1 million plays and 425,000 likes4.

Across both platforms, the clip and tweet references tend to frame the prank as a specific memory of Xbox 360-era lobbies rather than a trick anyone is actively running in 2020s voice chat34.

Timeline

2009-04-28

YouTuber HLGDecoy uploads 'what's the shape of italy,' the earliest documented recording of the Xbox party prank[2].

2011-08-20

YouTuber xXxred7headxXx posts a second clip of the gag being run on a party guest[5].

2014-05-16

Twitter user @Facityy writes what is cited as the first known tweet referencing the prank[6].

2020-02-13

@Class's tweet about getting hit with the question in Call of Duty picks up around 22,600 likes[3].

2020-11-01

TikToker @c00kiek1ng posts a sketch using the 'soccer ball' variant that reaches 2.1 million plays[4].

Frequently Asked Questions