If you want to express that you’re disappointed, know that there are a few different disappointed memes to serve you. One involves a famous actor, one involves an actor that might test the boundaries of famous, and one involves a fan of a sport known worldwide (but not quite understood everyone in the world).
Let’s take a look at three of the best-known disappointment memes around.
Kevin Sorbo’s Disappointed Hercules Meme
If you’re a fan of Kevin Sorbo’s portrayal of Hercules (or even if you aren’t), you’ve likely come across a meme in which Sorbo plays The Sovereign, an evil version of Hercules from a different world. In this clip, when Hercules: The Legendary Journeys reigned from 1995 to 1999, the character realizes, “Wait a minute, this isn’t my world,” and then rears back and yells, “Disappointed!”
Word got around that Sorbo was such a clod that he read a stage direction on the script as an actual line of dialogue. But Sorbo’s revealed in various public appearances, including an AMA saved for posterity, that he was prone to goofy ad-libbing on set, and his director decided to keep this in.
As he explained, it’s actually a paean to Kevin Kline in A Fish Called Wanda. Kline’s character, prone to bursts of anger played for comic affect, opens a safe, and upon finding it empty when he expected something different, yells “Disappointed!” in a tone suggesting an emotion much further down the anger spectrum.
It’s a good meme to use when you want to express much more than disappointment but like the comic effect, and it’s findable as part of an Imgur disappointed image roundup along with another we’ll discuss in a bit. However, between allegations of sexual harassment in 2019 and a more recent public shaming by Lucy Lawless over his Jan. 6 Capitol riot tweets, Sorbo’s gathered some sideeye that makes the meme less appealing for some.
Disappointed Cillian Murphy meme
We did a whole article on this iteration of disappointed memes, but essentially, it’s Oppenheimer and Peaky Blinders star Murphy, in a late 2015 interview, appearing to be disappointed as In the Heart of the Sea co-star Tom Holland fielded a question from an interviewer.
Someone noticed, and then someone else noticed that there were a number of instances in which Murphy appeared disappointed—usually in interview scenarios. That led to the disappointed Cillian Murphy meme, featuring a probable future Oscar winner helping people express disappointment.
Disappointed cricket fan meme
This one’s also called the Disappointed Muhammad Sarim Akhtar meme for the man captured in the image. It originated in a June 12, 2019 cricket match between Australia and Pakistan, according to Know Your Meme, with Akhtar dismayed with a development in the match.
Not only did the ICC (the International Cricket Council, governing the sport worldwide) find Akhtar in the crowd and share the video of him, but an interviewer found him and talked to him. The ICC tweeted both images as a thread.
We found him! 😁
— ICC (@ICC) June 12, 2019
Interview coming soon… pic.twitter.com/u2pFYvUrUm
But the expression Akhtar wore transcended cricket, and other outlets covering online culture picked up on it. Mashable reported on the image, saying in its headline, “This Angry Fan At The Australia Vs Pakistan Match Is Pure Meme Material!”
Akhtar himself saw the meme, and tweeted the day after it first was brought into the world.
Loving the meme guys. Next match is crucial #pakvsaus #ausvspak #cricket #ICCCricketWorldCup2019 #ICCWorldCup2019 #WC2019WithTimes #WC19
— Sarim Akhtar (@msarimakhtar) June 13, 2019
It’s endured long past since that day. Incidentally, Akhtar’s disappointment grew over cricket; Pakistan lost that three-match contest in a 2019 Cricket World Cup that New Zealand would go on to win.
But, from an internet perspective, Akhtar was the real winner that week, and perhaps since. People might not remember how Pakistan did in that competition, but they recognize Akhtar, firmly planted in the pantheon of disappointment memes.
