How Can I Laugh at This, There Is No X

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About

How Can I Laugh at This, There Is No X refers to a snowclone based on a scene from 1991 Disney film Beauty and the Beast in which character Gaston criticizes Belle's book. Originating from a viral Reddit post, the snowclone gained popularity in September 2020, with posts mocking overuse of popular meme formats. The meme uses the same image as Gaston Reads X.

Origin

On November 22nd, 1991, Disney animated feature film Beauty and the Beast premiered.^[1] In one scene of the film, character Belle is approached by character Gaston, who looks through her book and criticizes it for having no illustrations (scene shown below).

How can you read this? There's no pictures!

Prior to introduction of "How Can I Laugh at This" snowclone, the still image of Gaston looking at the book saw prior use online, particularly as a reaction image^[2] and an exploitable.^[3] On March 31st, 2020, Redditor Dwitt01 paired the image with the caption "How Can I Laugh at This, There's No Chungus." The post received over 7,200 upvotes in /r/okbuddyretard in six months.

HOW CAN I LAUGH AT THIS THERE'S NO CHUNGUS

Spread

The snowclone did not see viral spread until on September 23rd, 2020, Redditor^[4] ozzy1220 posted an ironic Doge / Foot Fetishism meme that received over 13,900 upvotes in /r/dogelore in three weeks (show below, left). On September 28th, 2020, Twitter^[5] user @spacepatrolash posted a version captioned "How Can I Laugh at This, There's No Among Us or Clone High," poking fun at meme subjects that were popular at that time (shown below, right). The tweet received over 4,000 retweets and 25,200 likes in three weeks.

HOW CAN YOU LAUGH AT THIS? THERES NO FEET!

HOW CAN I LAUGH AT THIS AMONG US OR THERE'S NO CLONE HIGH

Starting on the same day, the snowclone began spreading in memes on Twitter. For example, a reply by Twitter^[6] user @pisschamp received over 540 likes in three weeks (shown below, left). On September 29th, 2020, Twitter^[7] user @HaloCEofficial posted a meme that received over 660 retweets and 7,100 likes in the same period (shown below, right).

The snowclone format maintained notable popularity online in the following weeks, with viral posts appearing on Twitter and other online platforms.