Christ-For-Arms

About

Christ-For-Arms is a fake Christian film presumably about a boy whose arms are replaced with crucifixes and is mocked by his peers for it. The fake film's cover spread widely online, leading to some confusion as to whether the film actually did exist. The cover includes several widely discussed jokes, such as an advertisement for "three new EDM songs by Daldo" and an inset saying "They threw beans on him!" "They threw beans on him" later went on to become a notable meme associated with the image.

Origin

On October 20th, 2021, Facebook user Alan Wagner^[1] posted the fake cover for the film Christ-For-Arms, writing "I love to see a film with a positive message." The post gained over 1,600 reactions and 6,200 shares in nearly eighteen months (shown below).

Spread

The same day Wagner posted the cover, user griffinftw posted about the film in the Lost Media wiki forums.^[2] There, users were able to prove that the film was fake by finding a job listing for a freelancer to make a humorous Christian children's film cover parody, taken down just before Wagner made his post.

On November 1st, a YouTube account with the name "Daldo" posted an EDM song, gaining over 65,000 views in roughly fifteen months. It's unclear if the account is tied to Alan Wagner or is an independent fan of the image.

The post occasionally saw reposts over the following years on Twitter. For example, on December 28th, 2022, Twitter user hijonimdad^[3] posted a joke using the cover, gaining over 70 likes in two months (shown below, left). However, the joke peaked in popularity on February 19th, 2023, when Twitter user @mandyizhere^[4] posted the cover and called it "Christian Chainsaw Man," joking about the similarity between the main character of Christ-For-Arms and Denji from Chainsaw Man. The tweet gained over 20,000 retweets and 140,000 likes in one day (shown below, right).

The popularity of mandyizhere's tweet led to further parodies, particularly jokes about the phrase "They threw beans on him." For example, on February 20th, user @dice_bard^[5] posted a photoshop of a popular "Beans" meme, gaining over 120 likes in less than an hour (shown below, left). User @berdyaboi^[6] made a comic about how "They threw beans on him" was trending on Twitter that day, gaining over 1,900 likes in under two hours (shown below, right).

They Threw Beans On Him

As the phrase "THEY THREW BEANS ON HIM" continued to trend on Twitter the next day, users expressed confusion and bemusement. The phrase trended at the same time as World War III, which was trending amid statements and signals by the Chinese government on February 22nd that showed support for Russia in its war on Ukraine and against the NATO alliance.^[9]

Memers joked about the absurdity of seeing the two topics trend together. For example, @Podnip_ joked about the appearance of the trending topics list, earning over 10,000 likes (seen below left) on February 22nd, 2023.^[7] Similarly, @BobbyHowe posted a Distracted Boyfriend meme about the trending topics, earning 600 likes on the 22nd (below left).^[8]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References