As the saying goes, “Stars—they’re just like us!” Celebrities love doing the same mundane activities as us normies, like going grocery shopping, taking their kids to sporting events, going bowling, and taking selfies. But what happens when a photoshopped image of a celebrity doing an everyday activity turns into one of the worst memes imaginable? Enter the Chloe Grace Moretz meme, also known Chloe Grace Moretz ‘Family Guy’ meme for its interweaving with the animated sitcom. We have everything you need to know about it here:
Where did the Chloe Grace Moretz meme originate?
In May 2016, paparazzi photographed Chloë Grace Moretz holding two pizza boxes on her way back to her New York City hotel. Since then, internet users photoshopped the image to manipulate Moretz’s body, making her legs look longer than they actually are and her torso smaller than it is in reality.
The edited photo of the actress caused Instagram, Twitter, and reddit users to draw comparisons between the Moretz and Legs Go All The Way Up Griffin from the FOX cartoon, ‘Family Guy’ — then transforming it into the Chloe Grace Moretz Family Guy meme.
Did the ‘Family Guy’ episode mention Moretz?
Notably, the ‘Family Guy’ episode featuring this character didn’t reference Moretz. (The episode aired in 2011.) In the episode, however, the character comes to light when Peter Griffin reminisces about his great aunt. He said that her legs went all the way up to her neck and that she had no visible torso.
How did the meme spread?
According to Know Your Meme, the photoshopped image of Moretz spread mostly during the summer of 2016. Early posts on X (formerly known as Twitter) from a since-deleted account received a ton of engagement, while a Tumblr post of the doctored image, captioned “mood,” received over 9.000 notes on July 18, 2016.
Later that summer, internet users began to respond to Moretz’s own social media posts with pictures of the photoshopped image. One such response, from user @ItsDaveyon, received a whopping 655 reposts.
“this pic of you running to jump in every other bitch business but your own is stunning,” he wrote.
this pic of you running to jump in every other bitch business but your own is stunning pic.twitter.com/I6Q6P8PtM7
— DaveyonMinaj 🎀 (@ItsDaveyon) July 18, 2016
How did Moretz respond to the meme?
She wasn’t a fan. While celebrity memes are often traded as harmless fun, Moretz said that the ‘Family Guy’ meme was so “horrific” and she “basically became a recluse.”
In an interview with Hunger, Moretz said that at one point she was the subject of an “onslaught of horrific memes.”
“There was one meme that really affected me, of me walking into a hotel with a pizza box in my hand. And this photo got manipulated into a character from ‘Family Guy’ with the long legs and the short torso, and it was one of the most widespread memes at the time,” she said. “Everyone was making fun of my body and I brought it up with someone, and they were like, ‘Oh, shut the f*ck up, it’s funny.”
Moretz said that the online mockery left her feeling self-conscious and that she retreated from the public eye. She also said that it took therapy to allow her to face photographers again. “I think that body dysmorphia… is extrapolated by the issues of social media,” she said.
