Memes / Portal

aka: Portal 2

The internet: dedicated to making you fed up of seeing this.

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The Aperture Science Enrichment Center will like to remind you that at the end of every test, you will be rewarded with a slightly humorous internet quip from our Aperture Science Humor Database. If at any time you find yourself unable to stop laughing after hearing one, causing a high probability of choking to death, please lie down and wait patiently for our staff to assist you.

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Please add entries in the following format:

• The meme. [[labelnote: Explanation]]The explanation behind the meme, if necessary.[[/labelnote]] ^Explanation Like this.
  • Further mutations and successor memes, if any.

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• "The Weighted Companion Cube will never threaten to stab you and, in fact, cannot speak. In the event that the Companion Cube does speak, the Enrichment Center urges you to disregard its advice." ^Explanation In one level GLaDOS gives the player a Weighted Storage Cube that had to be carried through the level. Playtesters would often leave the cube behind and get stumped, so Valve gave the cube a Palette Swap and had GLaDOS talk about the cube constantly. As a result many players became incredibly attached to the cube and some even gave it a Memetic Badass status. Also a Trope Namer.
• "You will be baked, and then there will be cake." ^Explanation GLaDOS, resident Exposition Fairy/Mission Control/Big Bad, is an immensely popular Fountain of Memes for her dark, dark comedy, with nearly every single one of her lines repeated or mutated in some form. Some other examples are listed below. Note that this example is what shows up in the subtitles, but you hear the full line.

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  • "Any contact with the chamber floor will result in an "unsatisfactory" mark on your official testing record, followed by death. Good luck!"
  • "Speedy thing goes in, speedy things comes out."
    • "Wheeeeeeeeeeeee..." [Static White Noise]
  • "When the testing is over, you will be... 'missed'!"
  • "Someday we'll remember this and laugh, and laugh, and laugh. O-oh-oh boy."
  • "You're not smart. You're not a scientist. You're not a doctor. You're not even a full-time employee."
    • "Where did your life go so wrong?"
  • "I think we can put our differences behind us. For science. You monster."
  • "We're going to have fun... with Science!"
  • "Don't disappoint me... or I'll make you wish you could die..."
• "This was a triumph. I'm making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS. It's hard to overstate my satisfaction..." ^Explanation The closing credits song of the first game, "Still Alive", is also immensely popular, with lines often taken out of context, most notably "This was a triumph" etcetera in response to anything good.
  • "Look at me still [verb]ing when there's science to do"
  • "...and when you're dead I will be Still Alive."
• "Now You're [Verb]ing With Portals", "Now You're Thinking With [Noun]s." ^Explanation From the advertising campaign, "Now you're thinking with portals". Often used when someone thinks of a weird but ultimately successful solution to a problem. The phrase may have originated from Nintendo slogan "Now you're playing with power!". One of GLaDOS' lines in Portal 2 co-op, when a robot dies, is "Now you're thinking with stupidity".
• The cake is a lie the cake is a lie the cake is a lie—— ^Explanation Both GLaDOS and the escapee Doug Rattmann are a little cake obsessed, and later in the game there is a room where the phrase is scrawled over and over again. Used when something is an obvious scam or whenever cake is mentioned. This one is definitely a Discredited Meme; using it in most Internet circles will get people seriously annoyed and in certain places probably get you banned.

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  • "I wonder if the pancakes will be a lie too?" ^Explanation In the second Aperture Investment Opportunity video, "Bot Trust", the two robots are seen pancake-flipping. Cue Youtube comments like this. Unforunately, the pancakes were indeed a lie, as none appeared in the game in any fashion.
• "Cave Johnson here/Cave Johnson, we're done here." ^Explanation Cave Johnson, resident Crazy Awesome Mad Corporate Executive, is a Fountain of Memes to challenge even GLaDOS, and though not all of his lines became memes it is damn close. This one is used at the beginning and end of all four of the Aperture Investment Opportunity videos.
  • "That is not a panel. That's a crusher. We sell them too."
    • Snowclone: "That's not a <noun>. That's a <different noun>. We sell them, too."
  • "That's 65 percent more bullet per bullet."
  • When life gives you lemons, burn down life's house. WITH THE LEMONS. ^Explanation Cave's final pre-recorded message has him deliver an epic rant subverting the typical "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade" idiom. It is widely believed he actually managed to do this.
    • I don't want lemons, I want pictures of Spider-Man! ^Explanation J.K. Simmons, the voice of Cave Johnson, also played J. Jonah Jameson in the Spider-Man films, resulting in a lot of moments and jokes such as these.
  • "The Solution? ROBOTS! Then... fire the guys who made those robots and build BETTER robots!"
    • "BAM! Robots gave us six extra seconds of co-operation. Good job, robots!"
  • "Science isn't about "why?". It's about "why not?"!"
  • "Chariots chariots." ^Explanation From the over half hour of additional dialogue added with the Perpetual Testing Initiative (read: user-designed test chambers). Cave first says that due to the multiversal nature of the program, he'll precede all of his messages with "chariots" so the tester knows it's Earth Prime Cave. When he realizes there's a universe where his counterpart for no discernible reason says "Chariots" before his sentences, he adds another one on for good measure. Then Dark Cave Johnson starts saying "Chariots chariots chariots."
• "How are you holding up? Because I'm a potato." ^{Explanation (spoilers)} About halfway through Portal 2 GLaDOS gets attached to a potato, and says this. Also known as "PotatOS", taken from the developer commentary, and the official soundtrack features a track "PotatOS Lament".
• "Space space go to space so much space gotta see it all." "SPAAAAAAAAAACE!"^{Explanation (spoilers)} One of the corrupted cores that have to be attached to the final boss of Portal 2, the "Space Sphere", is obsessed with space, and constantly streams lines like these.
  • "Dad, I'm in space." "I'm proud of you, son." "Dad, are you space?" "Yes. Now we are a family again."
    • "Space is boring. Gotta go back to earth."
  • "Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey lady. Lady. Space."
• "This should be its own holiday. EXPLOSION DAY!" ^{Explanation (spoilers)} Another of the corrupted cores, the "Adventure Sphere", is not as popular, but has still managed to achieve Memetic Badass status, with jokes such as "Saxton Hale in sphere form".
  • "Yeah, you know, I'm a black belt. In pretty much everything. Karate, Jarate, Jiu Jitsu, Kick-punching, belt making, Taekwondo... Bedroom." ^Explanation The sphere also openly flirts with Chell.
  • "DUNDUNDANDUNDUN PLAYING BY OUR OWN RULES NANANA HANGING BY OUR FINGERS FROM A MOUNTAIN DUNDANDANDANDAN" ^Explanation Rick the Adventure Core's "theme song".
• They told me, that if I ever [insert action here], I would DIE! ^Explanation Wheatley was always told that if he performed just about any action, he would die.
• "Well, this is the part where [insert action here]". ^{Explanation (spoilers)} A parody of the infamous "This is the part where he kills you" scene in Portal 2, where the first two lines are spoken, then the chapter title appears, then the achievement is unlocked with its description, all saying variations of the same line. Upon the soundtrack's release, it was revealed that even the music track title was shown to follow this.
  • "Hello, this is the part where [insert action here]!"
    • Ch. 9: The Part Where [insert action here].
    • Achievement Unlocked: The Part Where [insert action here].
    • Achievement Description: This is that part.
    • Music Track Title: The Part Where [insert action here].
• And I-AH! BIRD! BIRD! BIRD! BIRD! ^Explanation Wheatley's line when he gets attacked by a bird.
  • AH! BIRD! KILL IT! It's evil... ^Explanation GLaDOS doesn't like birds either.
• Holmes vs Moriarty! Aristotle vs... MASHY SPIKE PLATE! ^Explanation Said by Wheatley when he tries desperately to make it look like he's your intellectual equal.
• "I AM NOT! A! MORON!"^Explanation  Wheatley really doesn't like being called a "moron".
  • "COULD A MORON [DO] (insert action here)?!"
• Fact: everything said by the Fact Core is a meme. ^Explanation The Fact Core's numerous inaccurate "facts" have become something of a meme.
• When drawing Wheatley as a human, he most often looks like Stephen Merchant (Wheatley's voice actor).
  • GLaDOS is often a white-colored Miku Hatsune. See also Moe Anthropomorphism.
• You know, [action] just now taught me a valuable lesson... ^{Explanation (spoilers)} At the end of the game GLaDOS says three different variations on "[Doing something] just now taught me a valuable lesson", and during the Art Therapy co-op levels says a variant of "[Player] just taught [Other Player] a valuable lesson in trust".
• A rare case of a meme that never was: In the end of the first game, outside the facility, a hoop falls in front of the player, quite close to the camera, bounces and falls to the side. For whatever reason, Valve thought this would become a meme and waited for the internet to start talking about "Hoopy the Hoop", as they called it. No such luck for them - Hoopy went mostly ignored, and "the cake is a lie" instead became the go-to Portal meme. Despite this, Hoopy can still be found in some random places in Portal 2.

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