Amidst all the horrors lurking within the Basement, there are also some incredibly memetic things.
Please add entries in the following format:- The meme. [[labelnote:Explanation]]The explanation behind the meme, if necessary.[[/labelnote]] ExplanationLike this.
- Further mutations and successor memes, if any.
- One of the most popular emoticons on Twitch is BibleThump, which is Isaac's default crying face.
- Due to the wide variety of items you can pick up, the game is also known for causing a lot of It Makes Sense in Context moments, particularly for things like Cancer, Dark Bum, and Dr. Fetus.
- "It's not a won run yet!"ExplanationThis phrase tends to be used for very powerful runs. Made popular by Northernlion, who commonly says it for runs which are easy.
- "You missed a Tinted Rock."ExplanationTinted rocks
are rocks marked with an X that, when destroyed, have a chance to spawn pickups like soul hearts, bombs, keys or chests. Due to their rarity, expect someone in a chat to tell the player they missed one, regardless of whether they needed the health or pickups, or whether there was actually one in the room to begin with or not. - "Isaac and his Isaac lived alone in a small Isaac on an Isaac."ExplanationPeople messing around with the intro narration has resulted in The Isaac of Isaac.
- CHUB DISLIKES SMOKE!ExplanationThe Rules Card item is infamously useless. It's supposed to give the player hints, but not only is the hint in question referring to something rather obvious (in contrast to a ton of other, more useful hints for other things such as Boss Rush), very few people play the game without visiting the wiki anyway.
- Yay, Cancer!ExplanationCancer is widely regarded as one of the best trinkets in the game, as it increases your tear rate and therefore damage output. The Black Comedy of getting cancer being one of the best things that can happen to you in this game has not been lost on the fanbase.
- Binding of Isaac players when something very bad happens to them (they got a damage-up) ExplanationLike the aforementioned cancer, many, many beneficial items and scenarios in the game would be absolutely horrifying/depressing in any other setting. The community is very much aware of this and often joke about Isaac players celebrating otherwise unfortunate events like drinking ipecac or finding their pet's severed head.
- FUCK BLOATExplanationAs shown in the That One Boss page for the game, the game doesn't skip on the tough bosses, but the Bloat is probably the best known and one of the most detested, to the point where Reddit has an entire subreddit (r/FUCKBLOAT) devoted to complaining about him. Even those who don't dislike him join in on the fun for Ss and Gs.
- "Are you enjoying the steak? Remember to chew it slowly or else..."ExplanationUnsurprisingly, Edmund, Tyrone, and company got very angry when dataminers leaked the secrets of Rebirth. In an interview, both Edmund and Tyrone went and said that the community "swallowed a hundred dollar steak in one bite", which lead many people to ironically refer to the game as "the steak". People (especially Imageboards) started joking about how Edmund was nerfing the items just to ruin the fun, or in other words, "not letting you eat the steak too fast".
- 109ExplanationThis was the number of hours in real life time that took dataminers to leak the secrets of Rebirth, including the process of unlocking The Lost. Since then, the number 109 has become infamous among the community because of its multiple references in the game and its usage in Keeper's ARG (found here). To start off, in Keeper's ARG and before the November 4th, 2015 patch, the Greed Machine used to max out at 109, which many believed it to be a code (but was later revealed, to controversy, to be a countdown). Then, a poster with Isaac was found at Santa Cruz, California that had a phone number missing three digits, which were naturally (and correctly) deduced to be 109. Next, upon calling the number, a voicemail with the voice of Isaac's dad included the words "I need you to ask me", to which the answer was a written question found in the Collection page for Money = Power, item whose in-game ID is 109. After that (and closing the number's usage in Keeper's ARG), when coordinates to a certain place in Santa Ana, California were discovered, the pinpointed location was to a building with the number 109. Lastly, Afterbirth+ introduced the Dataminer item, whose description tag is "109", clearly an enormous jab at the dataminers that leaked Rebirth's secrets.
- "Shh, don't let Edmund hear about [X], he might Nerf it..."ExplanationAfterbirth's release was infamously followed by a series of patches focused on nerfing items. As a result, fans often jokingly hesitate to refer to any item as "overpowered" for fear that Edmund might hear about it and nerf that item in the next patch. It saw a resurgence in Repentance after the game's global rebalance, with some of the items subject to this meme including Psy Fly and Echo Chamber.
- Ultra Greed's AssExplanationThe Final Boss of Greed Mode, Ultra Greed, has an inexplicably well-detailed rear end. This has not gone unnoticed among the community. It was so popular, even, that it got its own Four Souls card.
- Dank Depths ExplanationThe alt floor of the Depths introduced in Afterbirth, which quickly led to jokes due to the word "dank" being associated more with dank memes and weed.
- "SISSYYYY! How ya doin' Sissy? Little Sissy!"ExplanationThis is the common chant for Sissy Longlegs from Sinvicta, YouTuber who is famous for his incredibly long win streak with Eden. Going hand in hand with her Ugly Cute and Ensemble Dark Horse status, she has gone on to become one of the unofficial mascots of the channel.
- "By gawd, it's Pin (with a steel chair)!"ExplanationAnother meme from Sinvicta (as pictured above), often chanted when Pin the worm appears on-screen. It eventually evolved into many other variations, including "Frail with a pail" or "Scolex with a Rolex" (even though Sinvicta himself has said the meme was never meant to rhyme in the first place). The meme has thus vindicated Pin into a Memetic Badass for many. The "By gawd!" part originates from popular WWE commentator Jim Ross, who had a tendency to exclaim it.
- "AS IF I REALLY LOOK LIKE THIS!"ExplanationTear Jerker and Nightmare Fuel aside, many players have drawn parallels to Ending 21 and the "Big Fat Meanie" scene from "New Student Starfish" in SpongeBob SqurePants.
- "BLASPHEMY AGAINST THE HOOOOOOOLLLY SPIRIT!"ExplanationOne of the more hammy lines from Living in the Light, Dogma's theme. As such, people tend to quote it whenever anyone mentions Dogma.
- "THE ANGER OF GOD IS COMING!" ExplanationAnother popular line from Living in the Light.
- Living in the Light's "lyrics" in general are popular copypasta fodder.
- Jacob and Hitbox ExplanationEsau is generally seen as a liability due to his tendency to take unnecessary damage. Many players refer to him simply as a hitbox to accentuate this.
- In a similar vein, Jacob OR Esau ExplanationA description for Tainted Lazarus, whose gameplay can be accurately summarized as "Tag Team Jacob and Esau": He switches between two forms, who play as functionally different characters with different item loadouts; items aren't shared between each other, just like Jacob and Esau. Jokes like these were especially prominent before the November 2021 Update, when T. Lazarus didn't even have the benefit of Flip granting extra items; some argued this made him even worse to play than Jacob and Esau. The meme ended up going full circle with Tainted Lazarus' Birthright, which causes the inactive version of Lazarus to become a ghost that works a lot like Esau without a hitbox.
- @edmundmcmillen You litte F**ker You made a shit of piece with your trash Issac it’s f**King Bad this trash game I will become back my money I hope you will in your next time a cow on a trash farm you sucker ExplanationSomeone on Twitter posted a small rant against Edmund McMillen in such a poorly-translated way that it borders on Angrish. Within hours of McMillen quote-retweeting it with "I want this on my tombstone", the Rebirth team, Mudeth (Antibirth's music composer), and the Isaac community at large had a damn field day with it.Further explanationThe comments in the previously-linked Reddit post specify that the original author was most likely German, due to the most notable grammatical mistakes in the post (such as changing "get" to "become") being relatively common in poor German-to-English translations.
- BLOOD PUPPY!ExplanationSimilarly to Sissy Longlegs, Sinvicta started chanting Blood Puppy's name early on in Repentance. It helps that like Sissy, Blood Puppy looks very cute with its constant cat smile and squishy bean-like body, albeit in an Ugly Cute fashion. It has become a Discredited Meme as of lately.
- "BAD PUPPY! BAD!"ExplanationOften chanted whenever Blood Puppy attacks Isaac. Blood Puppy has anger issues, so after killing a certain amount of enemies, it becomes enraged and targets Isaac. You can calm Blood Puppy down by attacking it, but if allowed to kill more, it becomes even more dangerous.
- YEET THE BONES!ExplanationTainted Forgotten's gimmick is in order to attack, you have to toss the pile of bones at enemies, using the Soul. This has led to a lot of the community yelling "YEET!" (commonly used to describe throwing things with a lot of force at something/someone) when doing this.
- BETTER ITEMS! ExplanationIn exchange for losing the Holy Mantle, Tainted Lost has a gimmick that eliminates items he can't use from any pool, such as HP upgrades and items which activate on hit. On release, however, this infamously excluded Yuck Heart and Best Bud, items that are entirely useless for the character. The eliminated items list also includes several extremely useful defensive items for The Lost, like ones that give him extra lives (most importantly Dead Cat, which grants nine lives), and even the Holy Mantle itself (which protects from one hit per room). In combination with the previously mentioned disadvantages, this makes people believe in general that they far outweigh any promise of "better items".
- "Something Else"ExplanationOn May 2, 2021, IGN's Twitter account tweeted a picture with the question "What's your favorite roguelike/roguelite?", with a couple of Roguelike games as options, including Hades, Returnal, Spelunky 2... and The Binding of Isaac referred to as "Something Else". Considering Isaac is arguably one of the pioneers of modern Roguelike/Roguelites, and that Repentance had just released recently, people cried foul on IGN for dismissing it compared to the other games. Even Edmund's own response was hilarious on its own.
- Isaac singing Baka MitaiExplanationRelated to the above meme, a meme video made by one of the artists of Repentance, NotYourSagittarius, depicts Isaac singing Baka Mitai as the game was dismissed by IGN, with the song's chorus itself being a meme in its home franchise.
- HenryExplanationAn extremely rare enemy that can only spawn in a select few rooms in the Dross floor. He's a large turd with a goofy face, which doesn't attack and gets "flushed" a few seconds after spawning. After a YouTuber called IsaacGuru made a video highlighting Henry, he became a meme in the community, with people joking that he's the actual True Final Boss, that he's part of an ARG, or just making fun of his stupid design. There was a cut variant called Golden Henry, which would spawn even more rarely.
- "Zonked State"ExplanationA Wiki Vandal changed the page for Missing Page 2 to say that it gives Isaac a "Zonked State" as of Repentance — without actually bothering to explain what the "Zonked State" entails. People have latched on to this, declaring the Missing Page 2 the most powerful item in the game because of this.
- Ugh for Bad/Pog for Good/Specialist for REALLY GOOD ExplanationA set of three Repentance mods that became found near-universally across anyone and everyone uploading clips. One causes your character to make the "Ugh" face when in a room with Quality 0-1 items, one causes your character to make the "Pog" face for Quality 3-4 items, and one partially overrides the Pog mod by making your character do an incredibly well-animated "Specialist" dance, complete with a Background Music Override (a meme in and of itself) for any top-tier Quality 4 items, with Tainted Cain (who can't pick up pedestal items) in particular looking absolutely miserable while doing so.
- "Now add Rock Bottom."ExplanationRock Bottom is a genuinely good item with many potentially-awesome synergies, but it was poorly understood for the longest time and many would say it needed to be added to just about anything even if it made no difference. A majority of synergy showcasing videos on YouTube (especially ones that feature Soy Milk) have this phrase or at least minor variations of it as at least one of the comments — even after people realized it was pointless, the meme stuck.
- "Skill issue" ExplanationA tongue-in-cheek expression used to deride someone's apparent lack of skill. Often used sarcastically when a run ends because the game screwed them over.
- Tainted Lost's existential dread ExplanationRefers to a mod that changes Tainted Lost's face into something that's not all too happy◊. Given the extreme difficulty of the character (and the pain of losing a run that dies right before the finish line), many players found it relatable and quickly latched onto it, with the mod becoming one of the most popular for Repentance as a result.
- "I will slam my balls into a waffle iron if [X]"ExplanationOn the Binding of Isaac Subreddit, there was a elimination poll to decide the best Quality 4 item. One user, srrsquid, threatened to slam his balls into a waffle iron if Sacred Heart lost to C-Section (it did), and threatened to do it again during a follow up poll for the worst Quality 0 item. Because of this, waffle irons tend to be associated with item quality.
- "Isaac, we love you!" ExplanationA short clip of someone saying this phrase at a 3D model of Isaac (while inexplicably sounding on the verge of tears), who proceeds to smile an adorable little smile. People took it and ran with it, with several different reanimated takes. Most notably, this take with an alternate, happier ending for Isaac.
