Years of Academy Training Wasted

Submission 37,422

Part of a series on Toy Story. [View Related Entries]

When you trained your whole life to treat girls like a princess but they just want to be tied up with hand cuffs MEME NATION Years of academy training wasted!

when there is inbuilt functions for sorting and searching algorithms Years of academy training wasted! SPACE

*weed is legalized in 11 states* police dogs: Years of academy training wasted! SPRUE

Hitler: Hey guys, do you remember the tactic I used back in 1940? I'm gonna use it again on those Yanks! His plan: *fails horribly* Hitler: YEARS OF ACADEMY TRAINING WASTED!

Expert: confirms that video games don't make you violent The media: YEARS OF ACADEMY TRAINING WASTED!

LoFi Hip Hop Radio Girl Still Fails Test After Four Years of Studying Full story: hard drive.net Years of academy training wasted! SPACE

View All 39 Images

About

"Years of Academy Training Wasted" refers to a memorable quote from the 1995 animated film Toy Story said by character Buzz Lightyear after he comes to the realization that he is a toy. Online, the captioned still of the scene has been used as an image macro, often in reference to wasted time.

Origin

On November 22nd, 1995, animated film Toy Story premiered in the United States.^[1] In one scene of the film, character Buzz Lightyear laments the time he assumes he spent training.

Years of academy training wasted!

Spread

On December 7th, 2012, Tumblr user jebiwonkenobi posted "I never feel like more of a failure than when I can’t remember a piece of Harry Potter trivia."^[2] On July 28th, 2013, Tumblr user mrsweasley replied to the post with two GIFs of Buzz Lightyear saying "Oh! I'm a sham! and "Years of academy training wasted" (shown below, left and right).^[3]

On November 17th, 2018, Instagram user supreme_memer_ren posted the first known meme based on the GIF, with the post receiving over 2,600 likes in eight months (shown below, left).^[4] On November 21st, 2018, Instagram user my.new.memepire posted another meme based on the image to the platform, gaining over 3,000 likes in the same period (shown below, right).^[5]

When you spend years reading Wookieepidia so that you have a complete understanding of the Star Wars Expanded Universe and then Disney makes it all non canon aSu rome Memer Re VAL YEARS OF ACADEMY TRAINING WASTED!

When you spend your whole life to train and be a Jedi but Master Skywalker shows up and cuts you to pieces Su ne @my.netw.remepire YEARS OF ACADEMY TRAINING WASTED!

The format did not see any further spread until on June 15th, 2019, Redditor TheTrinketor posted a meme based on the format to /r/memes subreddit, gaining over 9,000 likes in one month (shown below).^[6]

When you fap five times a day for years, finally get a GF and still nut in 30 seconds eSu meTer @my.netw.r emepire YEARS OF ACADEMY TRAINING WASTED!

In the following weeks, the format saw a significant spread on Reddit, with notable posts appearing in /r/memes,^[7] /r/dankmemes,^[8] /r/shittyranbow6^[9] and other subreddits.