Spider-Man Pointing at Spider-Man
TL;DR · OriginThe shot of two figures in Spider-Man costumes pointing at each other comes from episode 19b of the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon, ‘Double Identity’.In the story, a vil…
Origin
The shot of two figures in Spider-Man costumes pointing at each other comes from episode 19b of the 1967 Spider-Man cartoon, ‘Double Identity’.
In the story, a villain called Charles Cameo commits crimes by transforming into other people, and disguises himself as Spider-Man to throw the real one off his trail. When the two meet, each points at the other and insists that the other is the impostor. That single frame of the stand-off is what became the meme. In the cartoon it was a serious beat about mistaken identity; cropped out, all that remains is two identical figures accusing one another.
Spread
The earliest documented use as a meme is a post of February 5th, 2011 on Sharenator, a compilation of 1960s Spider-Man images. From there it moved to FunnyJunk and 9GAG as an image macro with swappable captions, and then to Reddit and Twitter. In 2016 it saw heavy use in hip-hop circles, most famously casting the rappers Future and Desiigner — who were being accused of sounding alike — in the two roles.
It is also a case of the rights holders adopting the meme. During promotion for Spider-Man: No Way Home, Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland recreated the pose, and it has been reused in Spider-Man film and game marketing since.
Usage
- Two parties accusing each other when in fact they are the same — the hypocrisy reading
- Placing two things side by side that are indistinguishable
- Depicting two people passing the blame back and forth
Variants expanded to three or more figures are common, but the joke lands most precisely when the original structure survives: two identical figures each calling the other the fake.
Sources
- Know Your Meme, ‘Spider-Man Pointing at Spider-Man’ — the 1967 episode 19b ‘Double Identity’ source; the Sharenator image macro of February 5th, 2011; spread via FunnyJunk, 9GAG, Reddit and Twitter; the 2016 hip-hop usage
- TIME, ‘The Origins of the Spider-Man Pointing Meme’ — the Charles Cameo premise and the context of the original scene
- YouTube, ‘Spider-Man (1967) Double Identity (Spider-Meme) Clip’ — the scene itself
