Flirting vs. Harassment

About

Flirting vs. Harassment is a two-panel meme format lambasting a perceived double standard in women's reactions towards compliments coming from attractive and unattractive males, similar to the Hello, Human Resources meme format. Spawned by a viral Facebook meme, the format has been used both as an image caption and an exploitable since March 2021.

Origin

On April 13th, 2021, Facebook^[1] page Cricket niqqa memes posted a two-panel meme showing professional cricket players Shubman Gill and Prithvi Shaw, with both images captioned with the line "You look sexy." The image of Gill, a conventionally attractive man, is judged as "flirting" and the image of Shaw is defined as "harassment." The post gained over 1,900 reactions and 990 shares in one year (shown below).

Spread

In the following days, the image was widely circulated online. For example, on April 13th, 2021, the Instagram^[2] page crazy cricketmeme reposted it, with the post gaining over 21,000 likes in one year.

On April 14th, Facebook^[3] page OTC ;-) posted the earliest found derivative meme based on the format, with the post gaining over 330 reactions and eight shares in one year (shown below, left). On April 18th, Facebook^[4] page সদ্য নিউজফিড থেকে চুরি করা meme posted a meme comparing two Bangladeshi actors which gained over 1,400 reactions and 130 shares in one year (shown below, right).

Prior to April 21st, 2021, an unknown social media page posted a version of the image that would go viral in late April 2022. On April 21st, Instagram^[5] page bharris8379 made the earliest found post of this version of the meme, which gained over 1,900 likes in one year (shown below, left; expanded version posted at a later date shown below, right).

On April 29th, Instagram^[6] page lovelytitv posted the image, with the post garnering over 10,700 likes. A May 4th post by iFunny^[7] user JohnMondary_2020 gained over 3,900 smiles in one year.

Starting in September 2021, the image saw use as an image caption format and an exploitable, with users replacing or editing one or both images. For example, on March 9th, 2022, Redditor^[8] Some-MCFC-Fan posted a Political Compass meme that gained over 5,900 upvotes in seven months (shown below, left). On April 2nd, 2022, Facebook^[9] page NBA Memes posted an image caption meme that received over 3,400 reactions and 160 shares in six months (shown below, right).

The format maintained virality through the summer of 2022, seeing an uptick in use on social media in September 2022 as several versions, including a Wise Mystical Tree one, went viral.^[10]

Related Memes

Hello, Human Resources!?

Hello, Human Resources?!, also known as Know the Work Rules, is a comic by Sunny Street lambasting a perceived double standard in women's reactions towards compliments coming from attractive and unattractive males, similar to Be Attractive, Don't Be Unattractive trope. Online, the comic has been parodied, with the phrases said by the characters of the comic altered.

Unspoken Rizz vs. Sexual Harassment

Unspoken Rizz vs. Sexual Harassment refers to a variant of the "Flirting vs. Harassment" template that substitutes the word "flirting" with Unspoken Rizz, as in, the alpha male ability to attract a woman without even trying. Two image macros or characters are inserted into the template and compared against each other based on their charisma and attractiveness. It first surfaced on Twitter in early 2022.

Various Examples

Templates

Search Interest

External References