A Real Man Never Speaks Ill Of X

About

A Real Man Never Speaks Ill Of X or Un Verdadero Hombre Nunca Habla Mal De X is an exploitable image macro and phrasal template meme format using a black-and-white image of actor Vin Diesel making the "shush" or "quiet" gesture with his finger over his lips in which people declare their devotion towards a famous person or notable character from a piece of media like anime or video games. The meme started in May 2021 on Facebook, especially among Spanish-speaking netizens, with an English version of the meme going viral in September 2024 on Reddit and X / Twitter.

Origin

The earliest found post using Vin Diesel's picture as a meme was posted on Facebook^[1] on May 2nd, 2021, by user Gabriel AC. The image is accompanied by the text in Spanish, "Un verdadero hombre nunca habla habla mal de FreeGod," which translates to, "A real man never speaks ill of FreeGod [Free Fire]." The post received roughly 70 reactions in three years.

Spread

Vin Diesel's picture making a "shush" gesture sparked numerous variations over the years accompanied by the phrase, "A real man never speaks ill of X," in which users added pictures and illustrations of their favorite celebrities or notable characters.

For example, on September 13th, 2024, X^[2] user @ThePostMan_120 uploaded a version of the meme using an image of the One Piece character Boa Hancock (seen below), amassing over 800 likes and 160 reposts in three days.

Redditor apper5103 uploaded a version of the meme to the subreddit /r/memes^[3] on September 15th, 2024, featuring a banner from the video game Spore (seen below), amassing roughly 5,200 upvotes and 160 comments in a day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References