firing gun sun meme

bad_knight_templar

The ‘firing a gun at the sun’ meme is the best way to point out a futile gesture

Firing a gun at the sun is a dangerous and futile gesture, but this meme is still pretty funny.

 

David Britton

Internet Culture

Posted on Jul 21, 2018   Updated on May 21, 2021, 10:32 am CDT

This July has been a hot one in the ol’ northern hemisphere. Things have cooled off a bit recently, but the first few weeks were brutal. People and animals have been coming up with some pretty creative ways to stay cool. Take for instance the bear who decided to crash someone’s unheated hot tub and drink a margarita.

bear_hot_tub
AP West Region/Twitter

But things got a bit extreme on July 4 when a man who goes by @JacobxMcClain on Twitter posted a picture of himself pointing a handgun at the sun, along with the caption “I’ve had enough”.

Sure, handguns are not toys, and looking directly into the sun is not good for your eyeballs, but that doesn’t mean the picture isn’t funny. Since it was first posted, the tweet has garnered over 500,000 likes over 200,000 retweets and kicked off a new “firing a gun at the sun” meme.

On July 6t, Instagram user cinematographymemes posted a version of the photo where the original background was replaced by a beautiful sunset, along with the caption “when the magic hour is almost over but you haven’t finished yet”—a reference to the short window of time treasured by filmmakers, right before sunset or right after sunrise, when the light is soft and warm.

Now people are having a great time relabeling the gun and the sun to make various statements. On July 18, reddit user bad_knight_templar posted a rather cynical version to the r/MemeEconomy subreddit. The picture labels the sun as the “American political establishment” and the gun as “tweets using a hashtag”.

“This has potential,” they added, “alot [sic] of it”.

This has potential, alot of it from MemeEconomy

People agreed.

we live in someone’s society from dankmemes

Although many preferred the squirt gun version, created by a company called RIPNDIP back on July 7. RIPNDIP seems to mainly sell clothing and shoes, but they also sell a few other items, including the blue squirt gun they used to imitate @JacobxMcClain’s photo.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bk8BLKGgACw/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=pqr0ygc46c45

Depressacito from dankmemes

https://www.reddit.com/r/dankmemes/comments/900k1t/hope_it_hurts/

It really do be like that sometimes. from dankmemes

https://www.reddit.com/r/dankmemes/comments/907yt4/take_that_bad_guy/

Gotta practice your English nouns from dankmemes

One person even created an alternative versions of the alternative meme.

I’m petty when I start down voting from dankmemes

This is the perfect meme to use to point out a futile gesture, whether it be someone else’s or your own. Like the “Distracted Boyfriend” meme, it’s an object labeling meme. But in this case, you only have two instead of three “characters” to label.

internet fame squirt gun sun meme
RIPNDIP/Instagram (Fair Use) David Britton

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*First Published: Jul 21, 2018, 7:00 am CDT