Modern medicine is a marvel—it cured polio, allows doctors to perform heart transplants, and even let doctors do surgery on a grape.
Wait, what?
The da Vinci Single-Site is a robotic surgical system used by hospitals around the world to perform delicate, minimally invasive surgical operations—like on, say, a piece of fruit—with teeny, tiny mechanical claws. The da Vinci itself isn’t exactly a “robot” however, as the system is controlled by a surgeon operating from a console.
Developed by the American company Intuitive Surgical and approved by the FDA in 2000, the da Vinci has since been used to perform hundreds of thousands of surgeries, typically hysterectomies and prostate removals.
To demonstrate this incredible technology to the average person, it’s not uncommon to see videos of the da Vinci doing an “operation” on a grape. Heck, we even once covered one on this very website!
BEHIND THE SCENES: Our Director of Robotic Surgery @declangmurphy showed Peter Mac’s da Vinci Xi in action for @ScopeTV11. Our centre has the most advanced surgical robot in Australia. Watch here as A/Prof Murphy does some surgery on a grape. https://t.co/MQQLkm9TDB
— Peter Mac Cancer Centre (@PeterMacCC) May 29, 2018
Of course at face value, performing surgery on a grape seems kind of silly. This fact was pointed out by the humor/meme Instagram account SimpleDorito last week using a Cheddar screenshot. “They did surgery on a grape,” the caption said, simply.
The source of the post appears to be a video uploaded to YouTube by Edward Hospital all the way back in 2010, but that didn’t stop it from quickly going viral in 2018.
From there, screenshots of the Instagram post began circulating on Reddit and Twitter, and it didn’t take long for “they did surgery on a grape” to become a full-blown absurdist meme. A subreddit to the meme even eventually surfaced, since the internet couldn’t stop talking about how “they” did surgery on a grape.
Just got word that they are doing surgery on a grape https://t.co/VdhIWGneJu
— No Jumper (@nojumper) November 24, 2018
THREAD: There’s been a lot of talk about the grape they did surgery on and I just want to clear a few things up for those of you who might be a bit confused about all this.
— David Hughes (@david8hughes) November 24, 2018
There was a grape.
— David Hughes (@david8hughes) November 24, 2018
And they did surgery on it.
— David Hughes (@david8hughes) November 24, 2018
lol= laughing out loud
— erin (taylor’s version) (@youareinlqve) November 24, 2018
tmi= too much information
brb= be right back
ttyl= talk to you later
tdsoag= they did surgery on a grape
https://twitter.com/emmachamberlain/status/1066466220705239040
And then “surgery on a grape” intersected with other popular Twitter memes, such as “don’t say it,” the ranking meme, and Trump yelling at the lawn boy—as well as plenty of creative Photoshops.
https://twitter.com/homedepotfan91/status/1066056315611447296
https://twitter.com/homedepotfan91/status/1066066330019803136
https://twitter.com/_Zxiid_/status/1066377488408944640
THEY DID SURGERY ON A GRAPE pic.twitter.com/sVe0vnnRSX
— Todd 'Papi' Carlos (@TheToddWilliams) November 24, 2018
https://twitter.com/yalllism/status/1066325329202069505
https://twitter.com/heygetoverhere/status/1066216709827248128
https://twitter.com/sunlitjhs/status/1066191904591630338
https://twitter.com/youstupidtwink/status/1066341825667977217
Even the Wendy’s Twitter account got in on the “they did surgery on a grape” action:
No one can ever say dipping fries in your Frosty is weird again.
— Wendy’s (@Wendys) November 25, 2018
They did surgery on a grape.
One thing is for certain: The internet will never look at grapes the same way again.