Are We the Baddies?
About
Are We the Baddies is a line from a sketch by the British comedy show That Mitchell and Webb Look in which two men play Nazis who realize they're the "bad guys" of World War II. The line has been used as a reaction image to situations where a person who identifies with a cause or group realizes their aims may not be good.
Origin
The clip is from the first episode of That Mitchell and Webb Look, which aired September 14th, 2006.
Spread
The clip began seeing use in memes nearly a decade later. An early example of the quote used in an exploitable appeared on Funnyjunk[1] on December 29th, 2015, showing the pair as stormtroopers in The Force Awakens (shown below, left). On February 3rd, 2016, Twitter user @VGFgamers used the picture as a reaction image for joining the Brotherhood in Fallout 4, gaining over 170 retweets and 470 likes (shown below, right).
The line saw more usage after major political events of 2016 such as Brexit and Donald Trump's Election which caused Americans and English people to use the phrase about their country's actions. The Guardian[2] called the sketch the most apt clip for the Trump era. Popular jokes using the line include a comic posted to /r/comics depicting a Trump supporter saying it, gaining over 190 points (shown below, left). A post comparing America's new enemies and new allies paired with the image gained over 1,000 points on Reddit before it was deleted[3] (shown below, right).
Various Examples
Search Interest
External References
[1] Funnyjunk – ..Are we the baddies?
[2] The Guardian – What clip best sums up the Trump era? An old Mitchell and Webb sketch about WW2
[3] Tumblr – browsedankmemes