About

Please Wrap It Up refers to a warning displayed on a teleprompter during The Game Awards 2023 (TGA) telling presenters to wrap up their speeches and not talk for too long. A photograph of the teleprompter went viral on social media on December 7th, 2023, the night of that year's TGA, inspiring numerous memes using the image and discourse surrounding it, with many finding it disrespectful to award winners. Memes about the warning saw a resurgence in popularity in late 2024 leading up to The Game Awards 2024 event.

Origin

On December 7th, 2023, The Game Awards took place. Purportedly, when an award winner's speech would run too long, a message would pop up on the teleprompter reading, "Please Wrap It Up." That night, several social media users posted photos of the teleprompter displaying the message, including X^[1] user @DaveOshry, whose post garnered over 54,000 likes and 6,200 reposts in a year.

Spread

The teleprompter became the widespread subject of memes and discourse online in December 2023. On December 7th, 2023, Hard-Drive^[2] published an article consisting of a single paragraph about the teleprompter titled, "Here’s a Really Short Game Awards Article Because Geoff Keighley Told Us to Wrap It Up," with their X^[3] post about the article garnering over 10,000 likes in a year.

On December 8th, X^[4] user @DevteamL posted a comic about the teleprompter that garnered over 4,800 likes in a year. That same day, Tech Raptor^[5] and Push Square^[6] published articles about the teleprompter.

On December 9th, the igndotcom Instagram^[7] page posted a video largely about the teleprompter, claiming that only 17 percent of the show was actually dedicated to the awards, with the rest being dedicated to trailers, reveals and cameos, garnering over 30,000 likes in a year.

Memes and posts referencing the teleprompter saw a resurgence leading up to The Game Awards 2024. For example, on November 18th, 2024, X^[8] user @KornArt3 posted, "Honestly man just remembered how insulting the game awards was last year with the whole 'please wrap it up' thing," garnering over 6,600 likes in a month.

On December 11th, X^[9] user @TheNCSmaster posted three images: one of the Bill Clinton kid crashing The Game Awards, one of the show Sid the Science Kid, which is often used to make fun of the game reveals during the show and one of the teleprompter, writing, "You think Geoff just silently stares at his phone anytime he sees these images?" garnering over 45,000 likes in a day.

On December 12th, the night of The Game Awards, X^[10] user @selectwario posted a photoshop of the teleprompter, making it read, "please brap it up," writing, "I do not like what Geoff is planning this year," garnering over 3,000 likes in under a day.

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