Spider-Man Memes and Their Origins: From Pointing Spider-Man to Bully Maguire

Spider-Man memes at a glance

The hero has been feeding the internet since at least 2011. From stills of the late-1960s cartoon to lines from Sam Raimi's films, Spider-Man has supplied memes to every generation, and the studios have ended up embracing them. The table below gives the original scene for each one. The films mentioned are put in order on our Spider-Man films page.

The pointing meme: an episode from January 1968

The pointing meme, 'Spider-Man Pointing at Spider-Man', comes from the segment 'Double Identity', episode 19b of season 1 of the Spider-Man animated series, aired on ABC on 13 January 1968. Charles Cameo, a master of disguise and art thief, poses as the hero; when the real Spider-Man catches him, the two characters, in identical costumes, point at each other in front of a police van. The original image shows two Spider-Men, not three.

The earliest known use of the image as a meme is a captioned screenshot posted on 5 February 2011 on the website Sharenator, in a compilation of stills from the cartoon; the Daily Dot names its creator as 'disco'. The real boom came in the mid-2010s on Black Twitter and in hip-hop circles, where the image was used to mock two people or two things that look alike. In May 2016, a Reddit post using it to comment on the rappers Future and Desiigner meeting passed a thousand upvotes.

The series itself has supplied plenty of other repurposed images. Aired from 9 September 1967 to 14 June 1970, it ran to 52 episodes over three seasons. On a tight budget, it often reused the same animation shots, such as Spider-Man swinging over the buildings: Know Your Meme sees this as the source of many awkward moments that became memes. Ralph Bakshi served as executive producer once Steve Krantz's studio took over production. The cartoon's theme song, with lyrics by Paul Francis Webster and music by Bob Harris, was covered by Michael Bublé over the end credits of Spider-Man 2, and Spider-Man: Homecoming opens with an orchestral version arranged by Michael Giacchino. Paul Soles, the original voice of Peter Parker in the series, died in Toronto on 26 May 2021, aged 90. The series has its place in our overview of Spider-Man cartoons.

When the films bring back the pointing meme

The first official callback in the cinema is the post-credits scene of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018): Miguel O'Hara, Spider-Man 2099, voiced by Oscar Isaac, lands on the cartoon's Earth-67, argues with the local Spider-Man and ends up striking the pointing pose with him, against a backdrop taken from 'Double Identity'.

In Spider-Man: No Way Home, the idea of recreating the meme came from Andrew Garfield: Tom Holland credited him with it in a joint interview with the three Spider-Men for Deadline, and Garfield said he ran to tell director Jon Watts. The official photo of 23 February 2022 was promoting the film's digital release in the United States, set for 22 March 2022, followed by its 4K and Blu-ray release on 12 April. In Across the Spider-Verse, the target of the alert is Miles Morales, but the crowd of Spider-People point at one another. All these versions of the hero are covered on our Spider-Verse page. The costumes of the three Peters from No Way Home can be found among our Spider-Man costumes and our masks.

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'I'm something of a scientist myself'

In Spider-Man (2002), when he first meets Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire), Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe), a renowned scientist and head of a major corporation, remarks: 'You know, I'm something of a scientist myself'. Peter replies that he has read all of his research on nanotechnology. Osborn will go on to become the Green Goblin, and the film is covered in our article on Spider-Man (2002).

The meme was born in 2016 on 4chan's /tv/ board, where an anonymous user paired a screenshot of the scene with a long, absurd text that became a copypasta, a block of text copied and pasted endlessly across forums. The subreddit r/raimimemes, dedicated to Sam Raimi's trilogy, posted a first captioned image in June 2017. The line went mainstream in early February 2018 on r/dankmemes, where it was used to boast ironically about feats that had nothing scientific about them. In 2021, in No Way Home, Norman Osborn repeats it when Peter lays out his plan to cure the villains before sending them back to their universes.

Pizza time, the train and Jameson: the memes of Spider-Man 2

'Pizza time!' really does come from the film, not the video game. At the start of Spider-Man 2 (2004), Peter Parker is a delivery boy for Joe's Pizza, whose boss, Mr Aziz, is played by Aasif Mandvi; according to Looper, Aziz gives him one last chance to deliver his pizzas in seven and a half minutes. Peter delivers the line as he drops off his boxes with a customer. The Spider-Man 2 video game, released at the end of June 2004 in North America and on 9 July in Europe, produced a separate meme: during the pizza delivery missions, its music is an arrangement of 'Funiculì, Funiculà', a Neapolitan song composed by Luigi Denza in 1880. The game is covered in detail in our article on Spider-Man 2 on PS2.

In the elevated train scene, Tobey Maguire's straining face as he brakes the train has become a recurring meme and GIF. Once the train stops, he passes out, and the passengers carry him above their heads before trying to protect him. The scene is analysed in our article on the train scene.

J. Jonah Jameson, played by J. K. Simmons in all three Sam Raimi films, has supplied memes too. In Spider-Man 2, Peter asks him 'Could you pay me in advance?', and Jameson replies 'You serious? Pay you for what, standing there?': FandomWire ranks this exchange among the memes devoted to the character. Simmons returns to the character in a mid-credits scene of Spider-Man: Far From Home, released in July 2019; it was his first live-action appearance in the role since Spider-Man 3. In the MCU, his Jameson hosts the website TheDailyBugle.net, and a web series on YouTube was used to promote Far From Home and then No Way Home. The character is profiled in our portrait of J. Jonah Jameson.

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Bully Maguire and the Spider-Man 3 dance

'Bully Maguire' refers to Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker under the influence of the symbiote in Spider-Man 3 (2007); fans also call this Peter 'Emo Peter Parker'. The name comes from neither the film nor Sony: it first appeared in a parody video by YouTuber Aldo Jones, 'AVENGERS INFINITY WAR Weird Trailer', posted on 18 February 2018. At around 1:48, Maguire's Peter sends Tom Holland's Spider-Man flying, and the words 'BULLY MAGUIRE' appear on screen.

The original video has since been removed from YouTube, according to the Daily Dot. The meme blew up on Twitter in September 2020. Two people behind the film have reacted since. In May 2022, Sam Raimi told Fandom that the dance was meant to be comic ('Well, we meant it to be funny, actually'), the idea being an awkward Peter's notion of what his evil double would be like, while admitting the scene had not gone down well. In December 2022, during a Reddit Q&A, Tobey Maguire, asked about the memes, replied: 'Fairly neutral. I did see the Bully Maguire videos, which was a funny discovery.' The film is reassessed in our article 'Spider-Man 3: Flop or Misunderstood?', the trilogy can be rewatched in the complete eight-film set among our DVDs and Blu-rays, and the black suit from the comics is explored in The Alien Costume Saga.

Peter's glasses and 'Mr Stark, I don't feel so good'

The glasses meme comes from the scene in Spider-Man (2002) where Peter, after the bite, discovers he no longer needs his glasses; according to the Daily Dot, the meme flips the scene: in the film, it is the glasses that blur Peter's vision. The multi-panel format is used to reveal the 'true nature' of something. It became hugely popular in March 2017, the month the Houston Rockets used it to present James Harden as the 'G.O.A.T.'.

Avengers: Infinity War, released in April 2018, supplies a sadder meme. At the end of the film, after Thanos's snap, Tom Holland's Peter Parker collapses into Tony Stark's arms, telling him he doesn't feel so good, then 'I don't want to go', before disintegrating. In late April 2018, the line was paired with the disintegration effect on repurposed images, such as SpongeBob; Know Your Meme dates the format's explosion to 29 April 2018. Every version of Peter Parker, including the MCU one, is covered on our Peter Parker page.

No Way Home: Peter 2, Peter 3 and Andrew Garfield

Even before its release on 17 December 2021 in the United States, No Way Home spawned a running gag. On 13 September 2021, as a guest on Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show, Andrew Garfield dismissed the photo presented as a leak from the set as photoshopped and insisted he was not in the film; his denials became a running joke right up to the release, which revealed he was in it. The hero's three actors are brought together in our article on the actors who have played Spider-Man on the big screen, and Tobey Maguire's and Tom Holland's suits can be found among our Spider-Man figures.

During the final battle, the three Spider-Men number themselves 'Peter 1' for Tom Holland, 'Peter 2' for Tobey Maguire and 'Peter 3' for Andrew Garfield; Garfield explained that the numbering came about naturally, on the scaffolding. He also told Variety that he improvised the line 'I love you guys', addressed to his two co-stars. In the same battle, his Peter catches MJ as she falls from the scaffolding on the Statue of Liberty, echoing the death of Gwen Stacy, which he had been unable to prevent in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. The film's consequences are analysed in our article on what No Way Home changed.

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One last meme came from a neighbouring film, Morbius: 'It's Morbin' Time', a line nobody actually says in it. Jared Leto embraced it himself by posting a video of him reading a fake script titled 'Morbius 2: It's Morbin' Time'. To keep the hero by your side every day, our Spider-Man T-shirts, mugs and stickers have you covered, and our Spider-Man bucket hats round off the collection.

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