John Silver Walk

Submission 7,775

Part of a series on Soviet Treasure Island. [View Related Entries]

About

John Silver Walk refers to memes and remixes based on a scene of the one-legged character John Silver walking from the 1988 Soviet animated film Treasure Island. Following the viral popularity of Dr. Livesey Walk memes, the scene has been paired with various music and was used as source material for video captions and other memes.

Origin

n 1988, Kyiv-based Soviet film studio Kievnauchfilm released Treasure Island (rus. Остров Сокровищ), a two-part animated adaptation of the 1883 novel of the same name by Robert Louis Stevenson.^[1] In one scene of the film, one-legged pirate character John Silver (rus. Джон Сильвер), is shown walking through a hall towards the camera.

Prior to its global popularity in late August 2022, the scene saw limited use in memes online on TikTok among Russian-speaking users. For example, on August 27th, 2021, TikTok^[2] user robstop posted a video caption meme that gained over 112,500 views and 12,800 likes in one year (shown below, left). On March 6th, 2022, TikTok^[3] user zeni_2902 posted a phonk edit that received over 711,000 views and 85,900 likes in six months (shown below, right).

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7001148009656356097

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7071972149291945217

On August 22nd, 2022, Twitter^[4] user @BrodTsumi posted a video of the scene, set to "Telephone Calls" by A$AP ROCKY, writing, "coldest walk in fiction." The post received over 377,500 views, 6,900 retweets and 45,100 likes in two weeks (shown below).

coldest walk in fiction pic.twitter.com/PdqCI7lGDX

— TsumiBro (Comms Open 📧) (@BrodTsumi) August 22, 2022

Spread

The post inspired video captions and other memes in the following weeks. For example, on August 22nd, Twitter^[5] user @Babysh_Art posted a fan Warhammer 40,000 animation based on the scene (shown below). The video didn't gain traction but was circulated through reposts in the following days.^[6]

HYDRA DOMINATUS#animation #treasureisland #warhammer40k pic.twitter.com/mJ3Y5NVlJm

— Babysh_art (@Babysh_Art) August 22, 2022

On August 23rd, iFunny^[7] user greateridahogang posted a video caption meme that received over 10,000 smiles on the app in two weeks (shown below, left). On August 28th, YouTuber^[8] God4Given posted a phonk edit that accumulated over 237,000 views in ten days (shown below, right).