Two Native American warriors in snowy forest with speech bubbles reading 'White man has been here' and 'How can you tell?'

White Man Has Been Here

2017image macroclassic

Published October 30, 2026

An image macro built from Robert Griffing's 2000 painting Friend or Foe shows two Native American hunters inspecting footprints, with captions that pin stereotypical white behavior on whatever they find. The template surfaced in late 2017 on Facebook and sat quiet until Instagram and Reddit edits in April and May 2019 opened it up. By 2021 and 2022, Redditors and Twitter users were swapping the punchline for vapes, forklifts and YouTube video essays.

exploitable templates stereotype memes dialogue edit memes delayed virality memes fine art memes

Overview

White Man Has Been Here is a three-panel exploitable where two Native American hunters find tracks in the snow and one tells the other, "White man has been here." The second hunter asks, "How can you tell?" and the third speech bubble, originally reading "Yellow snow. Wrote Name," is swapped for a joke that pegs white people as the culprit12. The underlying image is Robert Griffing's 2000 oil painting Friend or Foe, cropped from its black border for most meme reposts3.

Edits usually pin the detection on a product, habit, or piece of culture coded as stereotypically white, from vapes and forklifts to long-form YouTube video essays45. The joke lands on how specific the third panel is, so creators tend to pick a single oddly precise signifier instead of a broad category. Captioned versions keep the hunters' dialogue intact and change only the final bubble, which is why the format reads as a fill-in-the-blank template rather than a full redraw1.

Origin & Background

Platform
Facebook (first repost) / Reddit and Instagram (viral spread)
Date
2017

American painter Robert Griffing finished Friend or Foe in 2000, showing two Native American hunters bent over footprints in snow3. An unknown editor added three speech bubbles sometime before October 2017, turning the painting into an image macro with the "Yellow snow. Wrote Name" punchline1. The earliest documented repost of that captioned image went up on October 8th, 2017, on the Facebook page Blackfoot Productions, where it quietly collected nine reactions over the next five years1.

A December 28th, 2017 upload to santabanta.com preserved the most untouched version of the cartoon, including the black border Griffing's painting is normally framed in, which helps confirm the template predates its viral spread12. The original artist of the painting is Griffing; the cartoon editor who added the dialogue has not been identified31.

How It Spread

The cartoon sat mostly dormant through 2018 after Veteran Humor reposted it on Facebook on January 5th and racked up roughly 2,100 reactions and 3,000 shares over the next four years1. Meme creators did not start swapping out the third panel until spring 2019, when the Instagram page salty.memesters posted a version with the misspelled punchline "Froklifts" on April 15th, 2019, earning about 2,500 likes over three years1.

Two weeks later, on May 1st, 2019, Redditor eryial posted a related edit to r/comedyheaven that pulled in roughly 2,000 upvotes1. From there the template picked up speed on Reddit. On May 9th, 2021, user velvetbettle posted a "Vapes" edit to r/dankmemes that collected around 55,000 upvotes within a year6. Twitter joined in on April 29th, 2022, when user tribematic captioned the final panel with a jab at YouTube video essays as a telltale sign of white people, earning about 126,400 likes in three days7.

Reposts stayed concentrated on Reddit, Instagram and Twitter rather than crossing into mainstream coverage. The template works because its first two bubbles are fixed, so a viewer only reads the third panel for the joke, and the Griffing painting lends it a straight-faced visual tone the captions undercut1.

Timeline

2000

Robert Griffing paints Friend or Foe, depicting two Native American hunters inspecting footprints in snow.

2017-10-08

Facebook page Blackfoot Productions posts the earliest known repost of the captioned image macro.

2017-12-28

A santabanta.com upload preserves the untouched captioned version with its full black border.

2018-01-05

Facebook page Veteran Humor reposts the cartoon, earning around 2,100 reactions and 3,000 shares.

2019-04-15

Instagram page salty.memesters posts the "Froklifts" edit, the first known third-panel swap.

2019-05-01

Redditor eryial posts a version to r/comedyheaven that collects about 2,000 upvotes.

2021-05-09

Redditor velvetbettle posts a "Vapes" edit to r/dankmemes, earning about 55,000 upvotes in a year.

2022-04-29

Twitter user tribematic posts a YouTube-video-essay edit that gets around 126,400 likes in three days.

How to Use This Meme

To use the format, keep the first two speech bubbles reading "White man has been here" and "How can you tell?" and replace only the third bubble with whatever stereotypical giveaway you want to assign to white people. Common conventions include a single-word punchline ("Vapes," "Froklifts") or a short reference to a product, hobby, or media artifact, often leaning on misspellings or oddly specific details for extra bite45.

Frequently Asked Questions