Possums are known in the meme world for screaming at their own asses, but they’ve really branched out this month. The latest good meme is a possum (probably a North American Opossum, actually) in front of a microphone, giving its very salient possum opinions about pizza, recycling, and everything else. Where did Interview Possum come from? It’s hard to say, but it’s definitely here now.
The first Interview Possum meme seems to be this Feb. 2 Facebook post from possum-obsessed page Olivia’s O’Meme Outlet:
“Pineapple is stored on the pizza” is a twofold joke: the internet is famously polarized on the question of whether pineapple pizza is good (it is), and there’s a popular saying that “pee is stored in the balls” (it is not).
This post was modestly popular, but the Interview Possum really blossomed on Twitter the next day.
This tweet by Liz Harvey on Feb. 3, part of a streak of good possum posts, seems to be the first appearance of the photo on Twitter:
Me tweeting pic.twitter.com/PbsxwicW4c
— Liz Harvey (@_lizharvey) February 4, 2018
Patrick Monahan (@PattyMo) saw that tweet and posted this joke, also on Feb. 3:
https://twitter.com/pattymo/status/960042691714322432
It got several thousand likes, and the very good possum picture was on its way to meme status.
By Feb. 13, it had made its way to the popular Instagram account “Worst Instagram Account,” where it was watermarked with a shrimp emoji and got a new joke: possums are against recycling because they want more trash to eat.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BfGsjJVlr9I/
On Feb. 16, the Interview Possum meme really broke open. This tweet, where the possum delivers a version of a John Mulaney joke about being a kid, has more than 200,000 likes and 78,000 retweets. Mulaney himself even RT’d it.
I HAVE HAD A LONG DAY… I AM VERY SMALL… AND I HAVE NO MONEY, SO YOU CAN IMAGINE THE KIND OF STRESS AM UNDER pic.twitter.com/up80o54JsU
— fitz (@robokatra) February 16, 2018
The possum delivering its opinions is now undeniably a Thing.
TINY SUNGLASSES DON’T EVEN COVER YOUR EYEBALLS. pic.twitter.com/aOu3wCFKOn
— Jacob Gallagher (@jacobwgallagher) February 19, 2018
https://twitter.com/NickNBeauty/status/964956597746372609
On Reddit’s r/memeconomy forum, where people debate which memes are rising and which are about to expire, one poster declared “I’m going to aggressively invest” in Interview Possum.
But where the hell did the possum at a microphone come from? Why was he being interviewed? I could not find the answer to this question. Liz Harvey told me she found the photo while Googling “possum yelling.” It’s likely Olivia’s O’Meme Outlet did too. But the original source is unclear, and reverse image search sites now only turn up the meme posts.
Update 2/20/18, 1:52 p.m.: Interview Possum is also known as Sand Mountain Sam. He’s Sand Mountain, Alabama’s answer to the famous Groundhog Day groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil. This year, Sand Mountain Sam predicted an early spring.
Thanks to reader Fallon for the tip!