Aang Sees Past Avatars

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Part of a series on Avatar: The Last Airbender / The Legend of Korra. [View Related Entries]

Comments when there's a 69 in the post: Nice Nice Nice Nice Nice Nice 45 Nice

The rest of the system The protector The host, realizing for the first time that they're part of a system

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All the d---- I just sucked by association Me after making out with my crush

When you get old books and it has all the important highlights made with mematic

The generations before me who fought for my right to do so Me voting

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About

Aang Sees Past Avatars refers to an object labeling meme featuring a still from Avatar: The Last Airbender. The still shows the protagonist Aang seeing a vision of all his past incarnations or Avatars lined up, with Avatar Roku standing closest and turning to face him as his eyes glow. The meme is used to joke about being involved in long and often trivial traditions. The meme format first emerged in 2015.

Origin

In season 2 episode 1 of the Nickelodeon TV show Avatar: The Last Airbender, the protagonist Aang has a vision where he sees and speaks to all the past versions of himself.^[1]

On January 15th, 2015, now-deleted Twitter^[2] user @YahBoyAang posted the earliest known meme using a still from the scene, in a tweet where they wrote, "when you realize you're the last nigga in the blunt rotation." The tweet gathered at least 2,000 likes and 1,000 retweets (seen below). On September 20th, 2018, Redditor /u/Realicedteaco posted the earliest known version of the meme to use object labeling to the subreddit /r/MemeEconomy,^[3] gathering over 1,000 upvotes in over four years (seen below, right).

When you realize you're the last n---- in the blunt rotation. 1/15/15, 11:19 PM

like if you're watching in 2015 like if you're watching in 2016 like if you're watching in 2017 like if you're watching in 2018

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On February 23rd, 2019, Redditor DankPinnaple posted a version of the meme to /r/MemeEconomy^[4] and gathered over 13,000 upvotes in nearly three years (seen below, left). On February 24th, 2019, Redditor platinumpink4 posted a version of the meme to /r/me_irl,^[5] gathering over 38,000 upvotes in nearly three years (seen below, right).

Every cringy thing I've ever done Me trying to sleep

the forum posts from 2005 about the same error me searching for a computer error

On February 10th, 2020, a version of the meme that had text reading "Me sneezing so loud a baby starts crying" on Aang and "Every male ancestor" on the past Avatars gathered over 48,000 upvotes on a now-deleted Reddit post to /r/memes.^[6]

On September 8th, 2020, Tumblr^[7] user @bertsmememarket posted a version of the meme that gathered an unknown number of notes (seen below, left). On September 28th, 2020, Tumblr^[8] page @dankmemeuniversity posted a version of the meme and gathered over 150,000 notes in over two years (seen below, right).