Memes / Black Panther (2018)

• #BlackPantherSoLit, consisting of black MCU fans on Twitter celebrating the casting announcements. Even Ava DuVernay got in on it!
  • The ever-expanding All-Star Cast spawned the theory that Coogler was trying to get literally every black actor in Hollywood into the movie.
• Much like Chris Evans before him, the casting of Michael B. Jordan led many to joke that one way to advance your acting career is becoming a Human Torch in a 20th Century Fox-produced Fantastic Four movie and then moving onto the MCU with a better role in a better movie ahead.
• #LetAyoHaveAGirlfriend, in response to Marvel denying that Ayo was in a romantic relationship with one of her fellow Dora Milaje, despite being in one in the comics. Sure enough, they did add her girlfriend from the comics in the sequel.
• Erik Killmonger's hair and mask. Some even called them the best character in the teaser trailer.
• The Lion King (1994) comparisons picked up a lot of traction due to this shot from the trailer, coupled with the tagline "Long live the king". When the remake came out just a year later, viewers who disliked it made a lot of jokes about Black Panther being the superior or "real" remake.
• Two Tolkien White guys ^explanation  Andy Serkis and Martin Freeman are the two most prominent Caucasian actors in the movie, and they previously acted as Gollum and Bilbo Baggins in the LOTR trilogy and The Hobbit trilogy, respectively.
• T'Challa and Shuri's Secret Handshake, with some declaring it an official replacement for dapping.
• #WakandaGate ^explanation Comedian Sara Benincasa offered a $300 bounty to any journalist who would ask Donald Trump about America's relations with Wakanda and get his answer on live video. The hashtag was coined, then people started expanding on it (like proposing a question about the country's granting asylum to fugitive James Buchanan Barnes or the vibranium trade).
• When a character bio for M'Baku mentioned that he disliked Vibranium for being "mainstream", jokes about him and his tribe being hipsters quickly started popping up.
• GIFs of M'Baku and his Jabari guards barking at Everett Ross became used as a response to someone continually talking out of turn and/or on a subject they've shown to have no knowledge of.
• "Wakanda is Real", a meme celebrating the titular nation's symbolism of African pride and Afrocentric utopianism, or at least its rejection of colonialism.
  • Ben Shapiro's criticism of the meme led to a subsequent backlash meme, "Wakanda Isn't Real".
• People making comparisons between Killmonger and Dragon Ball character Vegeta due to the distinctive chest plate he wears resembling Vegeta's Saiyan armor, as well as speculating if it was an intentional Shout-Out due to Michael B. Jordan's known love of anime. It's since become fair play to assume that Killmonger is an anime fan himself.
• Is this your king? ^explanation  During their duel on the waterfall, Killmonger mocks the Wakandans with this line while beating T'Challa senselessly. This of course had led to condescending captions like "Is this your GPA?"
• De prinss will now heff de strenf a de bleck penta sdripped eweh. ^explanation The very heavy Wakandan accent used by Forest Whitaker as Zuri did not go unmocked by the fandom, with the line that prefaces the ritual combat scenes standing out in particular.
• DELETE THAT FOOTAGE◊ ^explanation From the scene where Shuri tricks T'challa into being knocked to the floor by one of her inventions while she records it on video.
• Chadwick Boseman and Michael B. Jordan became really fed up with people telling them/asking them to say "Wakanda Forever" with the arms-over-chest salute — especially in Jordan's case, since his character never does it in the film, as Killmonger grew up in the US and hates Wakanda. Pictures of the very-annoyed-looking actors were usually captioned with "Wakanda Occasionally" or "Wakanda Whatever."
• Comparing W'Kabi to Chris from Get Out, as they are both played by Daniel Kaluuya, and claiming that W'Kabi is actually a disguised Chris hiding from the authorities following his involvement in multiple murders (even though his victims tried to kill him first). Even better, some people didn't know the character's name from this movie, and simply called him "the Get Out guy".
• "Black Panther was a good movie but its politics were a bit iffy. Would've been way better if at the end the Black Panther turned to the camera & said 'I am a communist now' & then specified he's the exact kind of communist I am." ^explanation A viral tweet frequently used to mock those who criticize Black Panther and other MCU movies for not having sufficiently leftist politics.
• When word broke of the shocking passing of Chadwick Boseman on August 28, 2020, the instant reaction online was either images/GIFs of T'Challa doing the Wakandan salute or in the Ancestral Garden, or a quote from his "In my culture, death is not the end" monologue from Civil War.