The game's nature as a Contested Sequel and especially the very divisive plot led to the game spawning countless memes.
Please add entries in the following format if possible:
- The meme. [[labelnote:Explanation]]The explanation behind the meme, if necessary.[[/labelnote]] Explanation Like this.
- Further mutations and successor memes, if any.
- But can Ellie swim??Explanation Given how many pallet puzzles in the first game revolved around Ellie not being able to swim, fans would often joke that the most important question of Part II is whether or not she can swim now. As revealed in the May 28th gameplay demo, the answer is yes, she can swim now.
- Joel In One: Pro Golf.Explanation (Spoilers) One of the first full scenes seen in the leaks of the game, that Sony and Naughty Dog gave everything they had in order to suppress, was Joel's death at the hands of Abby. The specific method of his death at a golf club led to instant memes about it, especially in the field of golf puns. The Last of Us 2 subreddit even went so far as to make its banner a picture of Joel's head on a golf tee.
- Senator AbstrongExplanation (Spoilers) One of the first shots of Abby seen in the leaks had her wearing a very tight long-sleeve shirt that accentuated her muscles. The similarities between this and Senator Armstrong from Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance led to the nickname sticking to Abby during the leak controversy. This was further encouraged after release, since Abby is actually nicknamed "Abs" in the game.
- We don't use the word "fun". Explanation A quote from Neil Druckmann made several months before the game released. When the April 2020 leaks happened and a good chunk of the plot was laid bare, many used this as their reasoning for deciding to pick up any other game or to make comparisons to other stances on fun
◊. When SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated was released, some also made jokes about the F.U.N. song from the SpongeBob episode of the same name. - Chokeposting.Explanation (Spoilers) One of the stills from the leaks that went viral was a shot of Abby choking Ellie during a boss fight. While Sony tried to kill the meme as part of their wide-reaching DMCA campaign after the leaks broke, the choke edits still kept strong. In fact, Sony trying to take down the meme with DMCA may have even just added more fuel to the fire.
- Sex scene edits.Explanation (spoilers, NSFW) Similar to the chokeposting, a shot of Abby getting taken from behind during a full sex scene quickly gained traction.
- Finger-biting edits.Explanation (Spoilers) Taking after the above edits, a shot of Abby biting Ellie during their final fight has been gaining notice.
- KILL 'EM ALL, ELLIE!Explanation (Spoilers) Ellie sparing Abby in their final fight after having a flashback/hallucination of Joel playing guitar was widely mocked by players, partly due to Ellie suddenly now wanting to break the cycle of revenge after killing countless people to get to Abby, but also because Joel would probably encourage Ellie to kill Abby given how pragmatic he often was, as seen with his execution of Marlene.
- This game is Schindler's List while others are John Wick. Explanation A tweet by media personality Jeff Cannata. Became popular due to the tweet's attempts at praise, and also the comparison which many found downright flabbergasting, given that the former is about something as serious as the Holocaust. It also makes absolutely no sense at all since it's a tone-deaf comparison, as Schindler's List is about saving as many lives as possible. Part 2 is far more similar to John Wick in the first place, as both the film and this game are fundamentally about a person's pursuit of revenge after a loved one is killed, and the resulting massive body count as the protagonist murders anyone trying to stop them getting revenge on the person who killed their loved one. However, the main difference is that Schindler's List didn't shy away from dark themes like the Last of Us: Part II, but its darkness was used to make light more meaningful.
- Fat Geralt.Explanation (Spoilers) A Fan Nickname given to a stout enemy with long gray hair that punches Lev out at one point in the game.
- There have also been edits made of this scene, which follows after the paths given by the above three edit memes.
- "Abby hunting random Joels."Explanation (Spoilers) Fans quickly began to wonder how Abby knew specifically to hunt Joel down given the lack of visual records about him or how she learned his surname, which even players didn't know as Joel and Ellie's surnames were cut from the first game. This led to some black comedy jokes about Abby spending the five-year time-skip hunting every Joel she met like a serial killer until she got lucky.
- [insert game here] chokes The Last of Us Part II Explanation After the downpour of negative Metacritic user scores (many of which were posted within hours of the game's release and attacked the game), the Itachi choking Sasuke meme started◊ seeing◊ use◊ in◊ comparing◊ other games with higher User Scores to TLOU2, with Itachi's head being overlayed with the protagonist of the game with the better score, while Sasuke's head is overlayed with Ellie's. There are even a few reverse cases of this where Ellie chokes out a game with an even worse user score instead, such as Warcraft 3 Reforged.
- Name a character that went thru more pain than her. I'll wait. Explanation In a very similar case to the "Name a more iconic duo"-Meme, Someone on Twitter asked the community to mention anyone who had suffered more than Ellie. It didn't take long for people to give thousands of examples, with one of the most common simply being Naughty Dog's employees themselves given the Troubled Production the game had. Other common answers included Lucas, Kratos, Samus Aran, Guts, Ragna the Bloodedge, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Clementine, the Doom Slayer,Joel himself, and any character from Metal Gear.
- They shrank his shoulders. Made him look soft. Explanation On this game's subreddit, one user accused Naughty Dog of making Joel less masculine in a flashback scene. The post was quickly mocked and parodied by the gaming community at large.
- "Stupid dog!" Explanation The infamous "dog-killing" scene has Ellie shout this line. Many have repeated it, either as a reference to Courage the Cowardly Dog or as a criticism of Naughty Dog.
- "There was a sequel. Wasn't as good." Explanation In a flashback where Joel treats Ellie to dinosaur and space exhibits in an abandoned museum, he mentions Jurassic Park and how its sequel struggled to meet the original in terms of quality. Detractors of the game have since reappropriated Joel's thoughts on Jurassic Park's sequel to express their disappointment in this game's narrative.
- "I'm [insert random name] and this is my brother, [insert another random name]." Explanation (Spoilers) When Joel and Tommy first meet Abby's group, Tommy quickly reveals their identities to them. This allows Abby's group to realize that Joel is the target they are after, which results in his death. Some fans felt this was an out-of-character moment for a seasoned survivor like Joel and believed that it was just an excuse for Joel to be killed quickly. As a result, these detractors mockingly noted how the entire plot of the game could've been averted had the two simply used different names.
- "Where's my paycheck, Neil?" Explanation Many YouTubers pushed the belief that the game's overwhelmingly positive reviews and awards, were actually paid or bribed for and not real, leading to this saying among the game's fans, neutral people and even some reasonable detractors mocking those who were insistent on pushing this narrative.
- Written by Neil Druckmann Explanation Neil Druckmann was blamed heavily for Ellie deciding to spare/forgive Abby at the end of the game. This led to several comics of characters forgiving the villains of their series, such as Guts forgiving Griffith followed by a panel saying "Written by Neil Druckmann."
- Pro-Choice Ellie.Explanation (Spoilers) During a cutscene, Ellie kills Mel and Owen, the former of whom was established as being pregnant with the latter's child early in the game, though neither Mel nor Owen actually told her this. Either way, thanks to Ellie killing her, a very bleak joke reverberated in the fandom about Ellie being in favor of abortion. This YouTube playthrough is even titled as such.
- "Muh videogame daddy got killed." Explanation (Spoilers) Joel's death famously led to a heap of ridiculous behaviour such as harassment towards people behind the game, spreading of false rumours, review bombing mere hours after the game was released, and even death threats towards Neil Druckmann and Laura Bailey (hell, even towards Laura Bailey's child). Many of the game's most vitriolic haters thus became a meme themselves, the joke being that people behaved as if it was their real life dad who got murdered, not a fictional videogame character.
