# Will Smith Will Smith is an American actor and rapper whose decades of films, TV moments, and public controversies made him one of the internet's most meme-generating celebrities. From the 2004 Bel-Air copypasta and Woll Smoth photoshops on 4chan to the 2022 Oscars slap, his career fed a running series of formats that keep returning to prominence. ## Origin Smith's earliest meme associations predate most of his later ones. The Bel-Air copypasta appeared on 4chan's /b/ as early as 2004, baiting readers with an unrelated setup before switching into lyrics from the Fresh Prince theme[3]. The same imageboard around that era produced the Woll Smoth warp edit, which took its name from a deliberate misspelling of Will Smith[3]. His 2004 film I, Robot gave the internet Aw Hell Naw, flagged by Know Your Meme as one of the earliest pop-culture appearances of the phrase[3]. These early formats set the pattern of Smith's career repeatedly feeding new meme templates rather than producing a single defining one. - **Platform:** 4chan /b/ (early formats), later Reddit and Twitter - **Creator:** Unknown - **Date:** 2004 ## Overview Smith's meme footprint spans several distinct formats rather than one single joke. The Fresh Prince of X mashup series pairs the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme vocals with instrumentals from unrelated songs, growing out of the Bel-Air bait-and-switch copypasta that spread on 4chan's /b/ board around 2004[3]. Separately, Woll Smoth is a photoshop style where the warp tool shrinks the eyes and mouth of a subject, originally applied to a Will Smith photo on 4chan and named after an intentional misspelling of his surname[3]. Smith's films also fed catchphrases like Aw Hell Naw, with one of the earliest pop-culture uses appearing in his 2004 film I, Robot[3]. Later moments added fresh templates: his 2014 Tonight Show segment with Jimmy Fallon, Evolution of Hip-Hop Dance, ran through decades of moves like the Carlton and the MC Hammer[1]. His YouTube Rewind 2018 cameo produced two Reddit-ready templates, the That's hot binoculars clip and the It's Rewind Time reaction image[3]. The Sad Will Smith / Entanglement screenshot came from Jada Pinkett Smith's Red Table Talk discussion of her relationship with singer August Alsina[3]. ## How It Spread Mainstream appearances kept feeding the cycle. On February 17, 2014, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon uploaded Evolution of Hip-Hop Dance, with Fallon and Smith running through decades of moves including the Kid 'N Play, the MC Hammer, the Carlton, and the Twerk, dressed in Fresh Prince-era overalls[1][2]. The video pulled over 19 million views by September 2014[3]. It was Smith's first appearance on Fallon's new Tonight Show[1]. YouTube Rewind 2018 handed Reddit two reusable formats: the That's hot clip of Smith laughing at a pair of binoculars, and It's Rewind Time captions pairing his line with nostalgia jokes[3]. In 2020, screenshots of Smith's face during the Red Table Talk entanglement discussion went viral as a sad reaction image[3]. The cycle hit its loudest beat on March 27, 2022, when Smith walked onstage at the Oscars and slapped Chris Rock over a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith, with the televised moment immediately feeding an object label template[3]. ## How to Use There is no single format. The Fresh Prince of X mashups splice the Fresh Prince theme vocals over an unrelated instrumental[3]. Woll Smoth edits typically use the Photoshop warp tool to compress a subject's eyes and mouth toward the center of their face[3]. Will Smith Slapping Chris Rock stills are often used as object labels, with the slapper, the slapped, and the audience each tagged to represent sides of a conflict[3]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Will Smith? Will Smith is an American actor, producer and rapper whose roles in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Independence Day, Men in Black and dozens of blockbusters made him the subject of recurring meme formats across the internet[3]. ### Where did Will Smith come from? His earliest meme associations trace to 4chan's /b/ around 2004, with the Bel-Air bait-and-switch copypasta and the Woll Smoth warp photoshop that was first applied to his face[3]. ### What does Will Smith mean? There is no single meaning. His name attaches to formats ranging from the Fresh Prince of X mashups and Woll Smoth edits to the Aw Hell Naw catchphrase and the 2022 Oscars slap object label[3]. ### How do you use Will Smith? Most commonly as an object label from the Chris Rock slap, as a sad reaction image from the Red Table Talk entanglement discussion, or as a Woll Smoth warp photoshop[3]. ### Is Will Smith still popular? His older formats are classic 4chan material, and newer templates like the Oscars slap and the entanglement reaction image kept the meme pipeline active through the 2020s[3]. ## References 1. [https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/jimmy-fallon-will-smith-do-681014]() 2. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im_5QdHp04E]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/will-smith]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/will-smith Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library