About

Gets Brainwashed of That Thing refers to a two-panel cartoon about corruption as a trope in media. The webcomic depicts a character making a discovery that could greatly benefit humanity but who instead gets corrupted by that discovery. Posted in November 2024, the cartoon has been adapted into a meme format as users humorously captioned it and referenced various characters it applied to.

Origin

On November 21st, 2024, X^[1] / Twitter user @MessRedds posted a two-panel cartoon depicting a character who makes a discovery that could save lives, but which instead corrupts and brainwashes them. The timing of the post implies that the comic likely referenced the plotline of the character Viktor from the animated series Arcane, although the trope applies to many other characters in media, with two examples being Marvel Comics character Otto Octavius (Doctor Octopus) and Wakfu character Nox. The post (shown below) garnered over 18.6 million views, 16,000 reposts and 172,000 likes in one month.

Spread

Later on November 22nd, 2024, X^[2] user @Sl1m_Skull quoted the post, writing, "Name one character that is not Viktor from Arcane. I’m waiting." The post received over 6,600 reposts and 149,000 likes in one month.

In the following days, users quoted the post with jokes in which they applied the suggested trope to various individuals, often ironically. For example, on November 22nd, 2024, X^[3] user @VLVTT_ captioned the post with a joke about Kanye West's alleged nitrous gas addiction (shown below). The post received over 730 reposts and 5,400 likes in one month.

On November 26th, 2024, X^[4] user @tanginamaran captioned the image, "My stepdad and beer." The post (shown below) garnered over 5,400 reposts and 80,000 likes in one month.

The cartoon maintained popularity through December 2024, with multiple memes based on it gaining traction on X / Twitter.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References