Black Ops Guy "Is That X?"

About

Black Ops Guy "Is That X?" is a recaption and image macro meme format based on the cover artwork of Call of Duty: Black Ops. In memes, the image is captioned with a clarifying question referring to another post, with the resulting macro being used as a reaction or a punchline in a complex meme. In 2023, a version captioned "Is That Frieza?" gained particular virality.

Origin

On November 9th, 2010, the first-person shooter video game Call of Duty: Black Ops was released.^[1] The cover art for the game is a dark photograph of a soldier sitting on the floor holding a handgun in each arm, his face obscured by shadow (shown below).

Prior to June 9th, 2021, an unknown user posted a two-panel meme that used the image. The top panel of the meme is a photograph of a gimmick banana car,^[2] and the bottom panel is the Black Ops cover captioned "Is that a banana car?" On June 9th, 2021, Instagram^[3] user @sssnark made the earliest recorded repost of the image, which received over 110 likes on the platform in two years (shown below).

Spread

On June 25th and 26th, 2021, the Instagram^[4][5] accounts @merciless.sungod and @big_chungles reposted the image, with the posts gaining over 5,200 likes and 6,000 likes in two years, respectively. The image continued circulation through 2021 and 2022, including reposts on Reddit^[6] and iFunny.^[7]

On February 9th, 2022, a Surprised Fast Food Worker in which the worker was replaced with the Black Ops Guy went viral on iFunny and Twitter^[8] (authorship unconfirmed (shown below).

In the following weeks, the merged format experienced a period of active use on iFunny. For example, on February 28th, 2022, iFunny^[9] user @oeyrm3imoo4113 posted a Pokemon version that received over 5,700 smiles in two years (shown below, left).

Is That Frieza?

On March 22nd, 2022, the social media page ForAmerica posted a Wojak meme about teachers that received over 10,000 reposts and 45,000 likes on X^[10] in two years. The meme used an image of a bespectacled female Wojak with pink hair and shaved sides (shown below, left). Starting at least as early as June 2022, the Wojak has been compared to Frieza, a villain character from the Dragon Ball Z anime series, as the two share a similar color scheme and design.^[11][12]

On January 24th, 2023, iFunny^[13] user YourPersonalGivenFuck posted the image of Black Ops Guy captioned "Is that Frieza" (shown below), also replying with it to a Dragon Ball meme posted two days prior.^[14]

Throughout 2023, the image has repeatedly been used to reply to memes containing the "Frieza Wojak." For example, on April 18th, 2023, the X^[15] account @EverythingOOC made one such reply that gained over 820 smiles on the platform in six months. On September 29th, X^[16] user @fang_the_sniper posted a scroll-down video of the "Is that Frieza" image being spammed in replies to the Wojak meme (shown below).

https://t.co/PdAoIn3tVp pic.twitter.com/m88jh7s17V

— 🎃Len🦇 (@fang_the_sniper) September 30, 2023

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References