You've Been Gnomed — 3D gnome with red hat, white beard and blue shirt on white background

You've Been Gnomed

2010viral videoclassic

Published October 8, 2026

You've Been Gnomed is a short 3D animation of a gnome named Noggin Clontith laughing before leaning into the camera and declaring the title phrase. Originally a 2010 web ad for a British gnome fan site, it sat dormant for years before Reddit crate-diggers hauled it onto /r/DeepIntoYouTube in 2015 and turned the clip into a bait-and-switch prank staple12.

bait and switch memes prank memes copypasta memes delayed virality memes cgi animation memes

Overview

The clip is a 20-ish-second CGI advert where a stubby, bearded gnome cackles to himself before snapping toward the viewer with the line "You've been gnomed!"1. The character is Noggin Clontith, a mascot from a small British fiction site that predates the video by two years2. The humor hinges on the smash-cut reveal, which made the format slot neatly into the same bait-link slot as Rickrolling.

The copypasta half of the meme formalized the bit into a script. The full version, logged on the Trollpasta Wiki, opens with "Hello me old chum! I'm gnot a gnelf, I'm gnot a gnoblin, I'm a gnome, and you've been GNOMED!"3. People paste the line into unrelated threads or hide the YouTube link behind an innocuous description, which is where the "gnoming" comes in3.

Stylistically the meme leans into its own jank. The MS Paint-tier 3D model, the .wmv filename, and the overexposed laugh are the point, which is why a deep-fried edit by YouTuber Frootlewpz slotted in so cleanly during the 2016 deep-frying wave2.

Origin & Background

Platform
YouTube (origin) / Reddit (viral spread)
Creator
angie8051
Date
2010

The Noggin Clontith character predates the meme itself. The domain NogginClontith.co.uk was registered on May 29th, 2008, hosting short stories and media built around the gnome2. The video that became the meme was uploaded on March 7th, 2010 by YouTube account angie8051 under the filename "youve been gnomed.wmv," promoting the site with the gnome's laugh-and-reveal gag12.

For roughly five years the upload sat as a niche curio. By 2018 it had pulled in more than 230,000 views and over 320 comments, though most of that traffic came after Reddit discovered it2.

How It Spread

The clip's second life started on November 5th, 2015, when Redditor Rolfy posted it to /r/DeepIntoYouTube, a subreddit built around pulling weird videos out of YouTube's long tail2. From there the format fed into copypasta culture: on January 5th, 2016, a page documenting the "gnomed" script went up on the Trollpasta Wiki3.

A dedicated "You've Been Gnomed" Facebook page launched on February 1st, 2016, and later that year, on September 30th, Frootlewpz uploaded a deep-fried remix that pushed the gag back into front-page meme circulation2. Urban Dictionary entries note another popularity spike around November and December 2018, when the clip was being used as a Rickroll-style bait on social feeds4.

The biggest Reddit moment came on January 20th, 2018, when the original video hit /r/youtubehaiku and pulled more than 1,900 points at 90% upvoted within a month2. The subreddit's short-form bias was a near-perfect fit for the clip's smash-cut punchline, and the thread cemented "gnoming" as a verb in the same family tree as rickrolling.

Timeline

2008-05-29

NogginClontith.co.uk domain is registered, hosting fiction about the gnome character Noggin Clontith.

2010-03-07

YouTube user angie8051 uploads "youve been gnomed.wmv" as a 3D advert for the Noggin Clontith site.

2015-11-05

Redditor Rolfy submits the video to /r/DeepIntoYouTube, starting its revival.

2016-01-05

A page for the "You've Been Gnomed" copypasta is created on the Trollpasta Wiki.

2016-02-01

A "You've Been Gnomed" Facebook page launches.

2016-09-30

YouTuber Frootlewpz posts a deep-fried version of the clip.

2018-01-20

The original video is reposted to /r/youtubehaiku, pulling over 1,900 upvotes within a month.

2018-11

Urban Dictionary logs a fresh popularity bump as users deploy the clip as a Rickroll-style bait.

Frequently Asked Questions