Some
BODY
once told me
The world was gonna meme me
I ain't the sharpest trope in the shed
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Franchise-wide/Miscellaneous
- As of The New '10s, Shrek, for some reason, became more known for its influence on Internet culture rather than pop culture at large, even garnering its own article
on The Other Wiki. There is very little from the first film that hasn't achieved Memetic Mutation at some point, and very few of those memes have died. The most well-known Shrek memes take the form of "Shrek Is Love, Shrek Is Life" copypastas and videos, which helped spawn the series' "Brogre" fanbase. These memes and fans treat Shrek as a Memetic Badass, a Memetic Molester, a Memetic Psychopath and a Crystal Dragon Jesus all at the same time. - Along the same lines, Shrek has been a commonly-requested newcomer for the fourth Super Smash Bros. game before its release, especially since the game Shrek SuperSlam was a mascot-platform fighter in the same kind of vein. The same happened with Super Smash Bros. Ultimate because of his longevity in meme culture.
- One of the taglines of Shrek the Third was "The wait is ogre", while Shrek Forever After had "It ain't ogre til it's ogre!". As a result, mentioning Shrek on /co/ will often result in a Hurricane of Ogre Puns. The most notable example is this fanart getting captioned with "I'm sorry Shadow... but my time here is ogre."
- From DreamWorksTV's Shrek videos on YouTube, there's Shrek saying "Oh, hello there!". Some of the memes have made references to Obi-Wan's "Hello there!".
- Shrek is love... Shrek is life. Explanation A catchphrase common among a type of ironic (and highly Not Safe for Work) fanfiction, in which Shrek engages in sexual intercourse with children who are fans of his films and kills non-fans, all of which is described in over-the-top detail.
- Riding off the coattails of the Bee Movie, it's also a popular fad to random elements to clips of the film every time a certain word or thing is said or done (i.e. the film speeds up every time Shrek takes a step, says "Donkey!", frowns, etc.)
- Pinches furros. Explanation Translation: "Fucking furries". In the Spanish-speaking community, Shrek has become the de-facto response from furry haters towards cringe-inducing acts by furries on the web based on a rather lame pun, changing Shrek quote of not liking donkeys (burros) to furries (furros), after a series of crudely drawn YouTube videos. It has been acknowledged when Shrek's voice actor in Latin America was recorded on video saying that phrase.
- Shrek Retold. Explanation A Multi-Animator Project remake of the 2001 original. Created by over 200 contributors for a fan convention called ShrekFest in 2018.
- The cover art of a 2007 compilation produced by NOW Music, Now That's What I Call Shrek!, has become a meme.
- Shrek Wazowski◊. Explanation It's extremely popular to photoshop Shrek's head onto Mike Wazowski's body, presumably because they're both green, debuted in 2001 and have spawned countless memes.
- *SNAP* YUP. THIS ONE'S GOING IN MY CRINGE COMPILATION. Explanation An image of Shrek holding a camera, often used to react to anything considered... well, cringy.
- Listing or picturing Donkey alongside other characters associated with dragons, eg:
- Shrek's Pizza Explanation In 2020, joke speedruns of finding a Shrek-themed pizza place in Manchester, England named Shrek's Pizza became popular, usually on sites like Google Earth. Unfortunately, it has since shut down.
- There were zero Shrek movies released during the Trump presidency.Explanation Near the end of Donald Trump's controversial tenure as president of the United States, Shrek fans started joking that he was worse than George W. Bush and Barack Obama purely because there weren't any new installments in the franchise while he was in office. An image◊ depicting these metrics subsequently became a popular subject for edits and further parodies thanks to its facetious nature. Hilariously after Trump's tenure ended and Joe Biden became the new president, another Puss in Boots movie did come out, which is part of the same franchise.
Main series
- "I like that boulder. That is a nice boulder." Explanation Donkey's opinion on a boulder Shrek decorated his house with.
- "Some-BODY once told me..." Explanation These were the opening lines of the song "All Star" by Smash Mouth, played when Shrek leaves his outhouse and fully appears to the audience for the first time. Because of this association, it's often used as a caption or plays over scenes where someone opens a door, and led to "All Star" becoming a meme of itself.
- "WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY SWAMP?!" Explanation Shrek shouts this at the horde of fairy tale characters who have relocated to his swamp home. A popular line to use in Shrek videos and remixes.
- "And in the morning, I'm making waffles!" Explanation Donkey states this when he first arrives in Shrek's swamp house.
- "Ogres are like onions! / Ogres have layers." Explanation Metaphorical advice given by Shrek to Donkey to explain that even ogres can be good deep-down.
- "EVERYBODY LOVES PARFAITS!" Explanation As Donkey questions the above quote, he inquires about ogres possibly being like parfaits, setting Shrek off. Parfaits are now generally seen as setting off Shrek's Berserk Button in memes.
- "DONKEY!" Explanation Shrek frequently shouts this in a thick accent.
- "UGHHHH, IT'S DISGUSTING!"Explanation Lord Farquaad, fantastic racist that he is, says this upon the reveal that Fiona turns into an ogre at night. This clip is often used in earnest to express displeasure with something, usually DeviantArt, namely in YouTube Poop form.
- "Good question." Explanation Shrek's response to Fiona asking why Farquaad didn't rescue her. Often used as a punchline to memes detailing situations where the author has to, well, answer an awkward or incriminating question.
- "The [X] has fallen in love with the [Y]!" Explanation At the tail end of the movie when Shrek objects to Farquaad and Fiona's wedding, Farquaad laughs and says "The ogre has fallen in love with the princess!" Turned into a snowclone where [X] is normally referring to the poster while [Y] is something they are a big fan of. It's also spun off into one where Farquaad's line is replaced with something else—usually a single word with no punctuation.
- E Explanation A picture of Lord Faarquad with the YouTuber Markiplier's face edited onto it, often photoshopped onto Mark Zuckerberg's body, gained prevalence as a major face of "Deep-fried" memes, with such overly-specialized purposes removed from context and heavy compression from constant saving and re-saving that it can be hard to tell what it was even about to begin with.
- "Some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make." Explanation Lord Farquaad says this line to a group of knights being sent to rescue Fiona. It's been used when describing potentially disastrous situations that higher ups treat the safety of with apathy.
- "Like that's ever gonna happen." Explanation Shrek is reading a fairly tale at the start of the movie. Used as a self-deprecating Bait-and-Switch.
- "Quest? I'm already on a quest!" Explanation Shrek goes to Duloc to try and get his swamp back, when Faarquad gets the idea to send Shrek off to rescue Fiona for him. Often became a joke about vast open-world games like Skyrim.
- Pursed Lips Shrek features Shrek, well, pursing his lips. It's frequently used in place of a Flat "What" or general Stunned Silence after a particularly confusing or unsettling post.
- Following the release of Avengers: Endgame, some fans started to joke that the Avengers' struggle during the final battle to prevent Thanos from taking the Nano Gauntlet is quite similar to the scene where Shrek and his fairy tale friends try to take the Fairy Godmother's wand to defeat her.
- Shrek's human form is often compared to either Henry Cavill or Dacre Montgomery.
- The scene where Shrek opens the music box and quickly shuts it is frequently replaced with other music.
- "For five minutes, could you not [X]? FOR FIVE MINUTES?!" Explanation Shrek's annoyance at Donkey's antics come to a head on the long trip to Far Far Away, resulting in him saying this. This scene is often used as an exploitable template, where Shrek calls out a person, group, or thing for doing something, frequently a widely disliked action, far too often.
- "Enough, Reggie." Explanation Reggie begins playing his trumpet to the Hawaii Five-O theme without permission and then gets slapped.
- The Rocky Roll Call in the dinner scene.
- I NEED A HERO!Explanation The climax of the movie is accentuated with Jennifer Saunders as the Fairy Godmother singing her cover of "Holding Out For a Hero". It's commonly cited as the best scene in the series, and has sometimes been used in tandem with scenes from other films such as the final battle of Avengers: Endgame.
- The Fairy Godmother's cover of "Holding Out For a Hero" has been the source of video editings: this one synchronizes the song with the Hero's announcement trailer for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and it seems that the trailer was made to be synchronized with the song.
- C Minor, put it in C Minor. explanation The Fairy Godmother's order to the pianist before launching into said song. It is often bought to attention because of how iconic it is, as well as the fact that she is incorrect regarding the key. The song is performed in G Minor, not C Minor.
- Speaking of Smash Bros., people have been comparing Simon Belmont's Smash design to Prince Charming.
- "They don't even have dental."Explanation One of the most commonly listed examples of a line that gets funnier the older you are — on some sites, whenever someone makes a set of angry complaints followed by an irritated observation, one can count on a picture of that scene with the irritated observation added in to replace it.
- "That's okay, buddy. We're from the Union."Explanation A video clip of Shrek saying this quote to Fairy Godmother's secretary, edited so that Shrek, Donkey, and Puss are wearing Union uniforms and have mutton-chop beards from the American Civil War, with a period-accurate flag in the background.
- DA DA! Explanation Shortly after the main plot starts up, Shrek has a nightmare about being bombarded with baby ogres. He then wakes up and sees that Donkey and Puss have also gained baby ogre faces. Donkey says this in a demonic voice before Shrek wakes up for real. This scene somehow took off, possibly due to its Surprise Creepy nature.
- For whatever unknown reason, "Fiona's Father Dies in Shrek the Third" has become the go-to joke of choice by many internet commenters when discussing spoilers in highly anticipated franchise installments.
- A picture of King Harold dying is often captioned with *dies from cringe*◊, and is used to respond to disagreeable statements or memes.
- (deep demonic voice): DA DA!!!
- This picture of Shrek screaming◊ is frequently used in Brogre memes, especially an edited video that infinitely loops entering Shrek's mouth made by the one and only Neil Cicierega.
- Artie and Prince Charming being related somehow is often joked about, due to their jarringly similar designs.
- "The sauce is..."Explanation A pair of screencaps depicting Harold's death at the start of the film, re-captioned with this to make it look like he died mid-sentence. The image set is popular to use as a joke response to people asking for the source of an image/video, usually a pornographic one.
- DO THE ROAR! Explanation A child says this to Shrek at his children's birthday party.
- I LOVE YOU DADDY! Explanation This is the child's response to his father when Shrek complies with the prior request.
- The tagline of Shrek 4 was "THE WAIT IS OGRE!" As a result, mentioning Shrek on /co/ will often result in a Hurricane of Ogre Puns. The most notable example is this fanart getting captioned with "I'm sorry, Shadow... but my time here is ogre."
- Mint Ogre-load Explanation A picture of a billboard advertising a mint Aero-flavored McFlurry as a promotional tie-in, which became infamous for the alternate meaning of the word "load", especially given Shrek's reputation as a Memetic Molester.
- As happened with many other productions with disintegration scenes, fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe were spurred by Avengers: Infinity War's ending to descend like a pack of vultures upon the comments sections of the scene where Shrek disintegrates from existence.
- Following the release of Avengers: Endgame, some fans pointed some of the film's similarities with Shrek Forever After, including a retired obese hero (Thor and Puss in Boots), one of the characters wearing a hammer and a shield (Captain America and Princess Fiona), the whole alternate timelines plot point and some characters fading away from existence (Thanos with his army and Shrek).
Spin-offs and other media
- "Hey, you wanna see something cool?" Explanation Clips of Puss saying the titular line before the bell whacks the giant in the face during the film's opening are frequently edited so that the bell itself is something else entirely, usually to comedic effect.
- Shrek's answer to LoganExplanation IGN's review about the film caused a surprise to people since this was before the movie had aired in theaters, making people poke fun at a seemingly random comparison. Of course, the movie deservedly received praises from audiences making this comparison apt.
- The fact that this movie has a higher Tomatometer and Audience Score than Avatar: The Way of Water has also become a meme.
- Some memes and jokes of this movie being the fourth Pinocchio movie of 2022 were made due to this movie featuring both Pinocchio and a talking cricket who serves as the conscience.
- An image of Puss crying with his mascara running has been a new reaction image for the internet to exploit.
- The Wolf has predictably drawn a lot of attention.
- Common reactions include him being described as hot or sexy, in spite or perhaps because of him being Death himself.
- He's also seen crossover with various borzoi memes, being given its notorious long muzzle in fanart.
- Him being Brazilian (in reference to his voice actor).
- Jetstream Wolf Explanation The final fight between Puss and the Wolf is shot in a very action heavy style reminding a lot of people of action games like Metal Gear Rising, and combined with the Wolf's alleged Brazilian nationality, makes him a Jetstream Sam counterpart to Puss's Raiden. There's even an edit that sets the final battle to Jetstream Sam's theme, to boot.
- A black-and-white photo of him accompanied by his ominous whistle has seen frequent use as a reaction video on Twitter. It's often used as an omen, or even a straight up death threat, albeit in jest.
- "What's the matter? Lives flashing before your eyes? Pick it up. PICK. IT UP." Explanation The Wolf menacing a terrified Puss in their first battle is often edited to fit other situations where the Wolf is forcefully demanding Puss to pick up or take something.
- [speaks in Spanish] Explanation For whatever reason, a version of the official closed captions transcribe all instances of Spanish dialogue in the film as [speaks in Spanish]. Because much of the dialogue in the film is bilingual, this leads to instances where the dialogue becomes nonsensical because they didn't translate it. It resulted in a lot of jokes about people's favorite lines being [speaks in Spanish] or, because of how the subtitles handle Perrito's name, one of the film's main characters being named [speaks in Spanish]. There's an actual proper subtitle that does type out the Spanish lines, but it is still surprising that there's two versions of the subtitles.
- Jack Horner, too, has predictably drawn attention:
- "Woah! Woah! What took you so long, IDIOT?!" Explanation Jack Horner's reaction to the Ethical Bug calling him an irredeemable monster, typically used to ridicule those who discover or realize something terrible about a person or character when others have known all along.
- "Y-y-you're not gonna shoot a puppy, are ya, Jack?" "Yeah, in the face, why?" Explanation The Ethical Bug's reaction to Jack Horner threatening to shoot Perrito and Jack's Blunt "Yes" response to him. Fans enjoy photoshopping the Ethical Bug onto the shoulders of other villains and people with him asking them if they're really going to commit their villainous acts, with them having the same response as Jack.
- "Y-y-you're not gonna claim that T. rex was only a scavenger, are you, Jack?" Explanation "Big" Jack Horner has an almost identical name to a notable palaeontologist who's become infamous for his controversial views, most notably the "scavenger T. rex" claim he pushed in the early 2000's. Dinosaur enthusiasts who watched this movie took note of this fact and had a field day with it.
- Big Jack Horner Grindset / Sigma Male Jack Horner Explanation The Comedic Sociopathy of Jack Horner combined with his imposing stature made him a natural fit for the "Sigma Male" meme (think Übermensch meets Testosterone Poisoning). YouTube and TikTok saw semi-ironic Fanvids of Jack Horner with his lines put to various music mixes that made him look impressive.
- "Jack Horner, You Don't Have To Be The Bad Guy." Explanation YouTube videos include Jack Horner interacting with Steven Universe about redemption. Steven plays the role exactly as the Ethical Bug with the goal of redeeming Jack Horner, but the latter is completely unrepentant. The result of Steven's and Jack's conversation creates lots of Black Comedy on how heinous Jack Horner can be compared to Steven's Wide-Eyed Idealist belief with redemption being possible to everyone can be.
- #PUSSYSWEEP Explanation In reaction to the rapidly growing profit increase the movie has been getting, someone tried to add The Last Wish to the growing list of snowclones of Morbius (2022)'s #MorbiusSweep with this hashtag to continue generating hype for the film. Reactions to the term ranged from those taking Refuge in Audacity and running with it, to doing a Double Take before stating "we're not calling it that".
Video games
