About

Don't Be Rash refers to several reaction images, GIFs and clips of Marvel character Adam Warlock (played by actor Will Poulter) making a stop gesture and urging character Gamora not to act too hastily from the 2023 movie Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. Used online since May 2023 shortly after the film was released, the reaction meme achieved virality in December 2024 as a caption format.

Origin

On May 5th, 2023, the Marvel superhero film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 premiered.^[1] In one scene of the film, the character Adam Warlock, portrayed by Will Poulter, is fighting the character Gamora as she grabs his pet Blurp and holds him hostage. Seeing this, Adam Warlock makes a stop gesture with his hand and urges Gamora not to be rash with further actions (scene shown below).

- One more step and this weird thing gets it!
- Don't be rash!

Spread

On May 8th, 2023, X^[2] / Twitter user @KeiziTV posted an image macro of Adam Warlock captioned with the line. The post (shown below) received over 430 reposts and 7,300 likes in two years.

The image macro achieved moderate popularity as a reaction image in the following year, primarily on Reddit.^[3][4]

In December 2024, an image of Adam Warlock making the "stop" gesture with his hand achieved viral popularity as a caption format on TikTok, usually set to a cover of the song "Never See Me Again" by Kanye West.

On December 22nd, 2024, TikTok^[5] user @rajandasgupta7 posted the earliest found notable meme based on the format, a meme about Marvel Rivals that received over 320,000 views and 83,000 likes in two weeks (shown below).

On December 24th, 2024, X^[6] user @nerdyomniman posted a similar meme that received over 4,600 reposts and 88,000 likes in 10 days (shown below). On December 25th, iFunny^[7] user Appearingpanda made a repost that received over 8,000 smiles on the platform in the same period.

Multiple caption memes based on the format went viral on TikTok in late December 2024.

Various Examples

Templates

Search Interest

External References