Epic Bacon

About

Epic Bacon is an internet slang phrase which originally was meant by some to mean something was cool or excellent, but its usage became synonymous with cringe meme culture, and is used today as a way of saying something is annoying and overexposed. It combines epic and bacon, both outdated internet fads, and will sometimes include Le by people satirizing irritating topics, inexperienced internet users or people out of touch with current internet culture.

Origin

On February 13th, 2013, Redditor MaFFGeek^[1] posted a picture of a Facebook commenter saying "that's le epic bacon" on a post about a cool teacher to /r/cringepics, mocking the comment and gaining over 150 points (shown below).

Precursor

"Bacon" and "Epic" are both words which were used synonymously with "cool" or "excellent" in the late 2000s and early 2010s. "Bacon" was a popular subject of memes in the late 2000s, particularly on sites like Reddit and 9GAG before eventually beginning to be seen as cringeworthy by users. This may have started around the time of The Narwhal Bacons at Midnight, which was intended as a way in that time for Redditors to identify each other in public, which spread in 2009. The phrase ultimately became a source of embarrassment for Redditors. In 2014, a Redditor in /r/OutOfTheLoop^[2] said of the phrase, "This is like looking back at our childhood and cringing at the stupid stuff we did."

"Epic" went through a transition. It was initially popular in memes like Rage Comics before it ended up synonymous with memes making fun of cringeworthy content such as Okay, This Is Epic, Is this the birth of an epic new meme?, and When You Troll a Libtard Epic Style.

Spread

On September 20th, 2014, College Humor parodied "Epic Bacon" in a sketch where "internet consultants" tasked with helping brands be more relatable on the internet were dubbed the "Epic Bacon" boys (shown below).

On February 8th, 2018, Redditor PissmansMustard posted to /r/ChapoTrapHouse a screenshot of Elon Musk joking about bacon on Twitter, calling the image "Le Epic Bacon Elon Musk," gaining over 100 points (shown below, left). On December 7th, Redditor Lena-Why posted a screenshot of a person making fun of Notch using the phrase in /r/GamingCircleJerk.^[3]

On June 13th, 2019, Twitter user @20000TinyJars^[4] wrote that "unfortunately Keanu Reeves has become epic bacon," referencing the actor's recent oversaturation in pop culture and his adoring fanbase (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References