Let’s zoom in for a closer look at the ‘Spy Kids’ meme that’s making a comeback

Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams hit theaters almost 15 years ago, but it wasn’t until the past year or so that a scene from the movie became a meme. In an early scene, the boy Spy Kid, Juni Cortez, sees another team of Spy Kids coming to compete with them on a mission. His spy glasses fold out and zoom in, and the moment is a perfect visual expression of staring too hard at something.  

Now, it’s a meme. Not a dank meme from the ironic depths of Reddit, granted, but it’s at least the kind of dumb “normie” meme you’d see on mainstream sites like iFunny.co or 9gag. 

Let’s zoom in for a closer look at it: 

Mainly the spy glasses meme is used to indicate creeping on what someone else is doing. You could be spying on your partner’s text messages…

…or cheating on a test. This one is blatantly racist, playing to the direction Reddit’s r/dankmemes subreddit has been going lately.

The earliest versions of the meme were even more obvious and juvenile, with captions like “lookin at ur dick” and “inspecting the booty.”

The dates and text formatting on these suggest the meme first took shape on Tumblr circa 2013, but some meme speculators believe it’s making a comeback now.

“Tardcrusher,” the poster of the “Asian kid” meme that did extremely well on Reddit, thinks his work will inspire additional interest in the meme.

“Ayyyyyy lmao that be my meme. It was a great investment yesterday. I’d say it’s still good. Spy kids variations should be even fresher,” he wrote on r/MemeEconomy.

That seems unlikely, though. This meme is as straightforward and normie as they come, and the meme market is still bullish on high levels of irony. Keep an eye on this one, and use it appropriate, but it’s unlikely to net you much Reddit karma.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering where Juni Cortez is now, the actor who played him, Daryl Sabara, grew up to be hot. As of late last year, he was in a relationship with singer Meghan Trainor. 

Good for him!