Are You Two Friends?

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About

Are You Two Friends? is a two-panel object-labeling meme format based on a scene from the Star Trek: Voyager TV series in which characters Ensign Kim and Tuvok provide opposite answers to the question whether they are friends. Gaining initial spread in July 2020, the format was popularized online in April 2021.

Origin

On January 15th, 1997, episode 14 "Alter Ego" of season three of the science-fiction television series Star Trek: Voyager premiered.^[1] In the episode, characters Ensign Kim and Tuvok become rivals in a love triangle with the character Marayana. In one scene of the episode, Marayana asks if Kim and Tuvok are friends, to which they provide simultaneous but opposite answers (scene shown below).

- Are you two friends?
- Yes.
- No.

On October 27th, 2016, Tumblr^[2] user captainsblogsupplemental posted three images from the scene captioned with the dialogue (shown below). The post received over 7,600 likes and reblogs in five years.

On July 12th, 2020, the Facebook^[3] page United Federation Of Leftist Memes posted the earliest discovered meme based on the scene, with the post gaining over 1,600 reactions and 910 shares in one year (authorship unconfirmed, shown below).

Conservatives Are you two friends? Leftists Liberals Yes. No.

Spread

In the following days, the meme received further spread online, including reposts by Facebook^[4] page La Resistance and Instagram^[5] account the.decadent.socialist.

Following the spread of the post, in mid-July 2020, the format gained a limited presence online. On July 13th, an unknown Redditor posted the first derivative meme based on the format, with the meme gaining over 4,400 upvotes in the /r/COMPLETEANARCHY^[6] subreddit in six months (shown below, left). A July 14th post in the /r/YUROP^[7] subreddit received over 860 upvotes (shown below, center). On October 19th, 2020, Facebook^[8] page Classical Studies memes for Hellenistic teens posted a meme that received over 3,400 reactions and 750 shares in six months (shown below, right).

Conservatives Are you two friends? Anarchists Ancaps Yes. No.

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The format did not see active spread until April 10th, 2021, when Redditor duganaok posted a meme based on it, which received over 20,300 upvotes in /r/PoliticalCompassMemes^[9] in 18 days (shown below, left). In the following weeks, the format gained viral popularity online, primarily on Reddit and Facebook; for example, on April 18th, Redditor Stripe73 posted a version that received over 32,700 upvotes in /r/PrequelMemes^[10] in 10 days (shown below, right).