Story Time Jesus
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About
Story Time Jesus is a LOL Jesus-style image macro series featuring a painting of Jesus teaching a group of disciples with captions narrating gossipy, modern interpretations of famous Biblical narratives.
Origin
The painting used in the series is The Parable by American painter Lars Justinen[8] (shown below, left). The first instance of the image macro series was posted to the /r/AdviceAnimals subreddit[1] by iamhusband on February 1st, 2012. The captioned image (shown below, right) retells the biblical account of Matthew 14:22-33,[2] which describes Jesus' miracle of walking on water, in a more modern fashion. The thread was positively received by the Reddit community, receiving 696 upvotes, 461 points overall and 16 comments before being archived. In less than a week, at least 40 additional instances were shared on Reddit[7] and more than 146 instances were submitted to Quickmeme.[3]
But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
“Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.” “Come,” he said.
- Matthew 14:22-33
Precursor
Humorous parodies of Christian iconography have previously been seen with LOL Jesus image macros and a variety of GIF animations on internet humor sites like SomethingAwful and YTMND as early as 2005. Some of the more notable subsets of the LOL Jesus category include Jesus is a Jerk, Raptor Jesus" and Guido Jesus.
Spread
On February 2nd, Redditor fouzzz posted another instance in a thread titled "Story-time Jesus' party miracle,"[4] which received nearly 1,000 points overall with a net score of 4,943 upvotes and 3,952 downvotes. The image macro series quickly spread onto Tumblr[6] when L.A.-based artist Mike Mitchell[5] posted an instance describing Jesus' healing of a paralyzed man (Mark 2:1-12, shown below), which accumulated more than 5,100 reblogs and likes in the first five days.
That month, Story Time Jesus was featured on a number of internet culture and humor blogs including Uproxx[9], Blame it On the Voices[10] and International Business Times.[11] Throughout 2012, additional instances were posted on We Know Memes[12], Cheezburger[13], Christian Funny Pictures[14] and The Meta Picture.[15] In July 2012, a Facebook fan page[16] for the series was created, gaining 86 likes as of August 2013.
Various Examples
Search Interest
External References
[1] Reddit – Introducing Story Time Jesus
[2] Bible Gateway – Matthew 14 / 22-33
[3] Quickmeme – Story Time Jesus
[4] Reddit – Story-time Jesus' party miracle
[5] Tumblr – Story Time Jesus is My New Fave Meme
[6] Tumblr – Tagged Results for Story Time Jesus
[7] Reddit – AdviceAnimals / Story Time Jesus
[8] Lars Justinen – The Parable
[9] Uproxx – Meme Watch: Story Time Jesus Has Got This
[10] Blame it On the Voices – Meme alert: Story Time Jesus
[11] International Business Times – Retelling the Easter Story of Jesus the Fun Way: Story Time Jesus Funny Photo Memes [SLIDESHOW]
[12] We Know Memes – Story Time Jesus
[13] Cheezburger – Story Time Jesus
[14] Christian Funny Pictures – Story time Jesus meme – So I ask this dude what his name is
[15] The Meta Picture – Story Time Jesus
[16] Facebook – Story Time Jesus
Related Entries 3 total
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