The Expanding Brain Meme, also referred to as the Galaxy Brain Meme, originated as a Reddit post in late January, 2017. The meme itself compares various images showing different brain sizes, relative to the action that is adjacent to each image. The ironic use of this meme can be clearly seen by the audience, as the most simplistic image of the brain will coincide with the most realistic phrase or situation. For example, the first variation of the Expanding Brain Meme shows derivations of the word “who” next to increasingly more elaborate and bigger brain images. However, as the brains become larger down the list, the word “who” was ironically made into a made-up word. This meme was the first spinoff of the Internet-created word, “whomst.”
This fake word originated in June of 2016, and had its debut on Urban Dictionary. However, the Expanding Brain Meme did not die off when the “whomst” trend began to fade. Rather, the meme allowed for audience members to produce their own versions of the expanding brain, leading to the creation of both ironic and relatable posts.
These posts soon led to spin offs such as the Vince McMahon reaction, the motion blurred astronaut, and the Drake & Sprite commercial meme. These examples were all used for the same purpose as the Expanding Brain Meme, and also contained a similar format. Although this meme reached its maximum potential in the earlier portion of 2017, it saw a small revival in November 2017. The revival showed that the audience was able to do more than just object label the Expanding Brain Meme on the side of the images. They were now adding an extra row, object labeling, and adding their own images. The practice of object labeling involves overlaying text on images in order to provide a new meaning to a pre-existing image. When this meme first emerged, it did not take long for people to make new versions of the meme using different techniques, such as using pen and paper or building the meme on Minecraft.
Source: Know Your Meme
Expanding Brain Meme 