The One Piece Is Real meme is based on a catchphrase shouted by the character Whitebeard from the anime version of One Piece, which was based on the manga of the same name. The phrase is uttered as Whitebeard dies and becomes a meme used in online comments, in addition to being used as part of video edits featuring Whitebeard.
These edits are often set to “Dark Fantasy” by Kanye West, specifically its lyric "can we get much higher." The One Piece is Real meme is also closely tied to the One Piece Cock Edits meme, in which a user draws large male genitalia on characters from the series.
“The one piece is real” was uttered by Whitebeard in One Piece episode 485, "Settling the Score–Whitebeard vs. The Blackbeard Pirates,” which aired on January 30th, 2011. The phrase comprises Whitebeard’s final words.
On March 15th, 2021, Anime Clips, a YouTube channel, posted an English dub clip of the One Piece scene. The video garnered over 23k in its first year posted. While the original has been removed, the repost below currently has 154k views.
The one piece is real memes began in August, 2020, when Twitter/X user Dhlinez uploaded a Not Safe For Work image of Whitebeard with a comically large penis that matched his body size. (Obviously censored below.)
On September 3rd, 2021, Twitter user @BestBuyMilk posted a tweet with the quote over dhlinez’s phallic artwork.
Taking inspiration from this, the scene’s audio was matched with the image by the Twitter user @biscuittts on September 17th, 2021. The audio used on this post was a rough take of the original dub sourced from the show. This all served as a sort of template for the glut of video memes the clip would result in down the line.
“Cock edit” One Piece Twitter artist @onepiececock (account now deleted) joined the party on April 23rd, 2022, when they posted a cock edit of One Piece character Chopper (himself no stranger to the meme world at this point), which got 200 likes in six months.
In July, 2022, the combined audio and image of Whitebeard standing began appearing as video memes. After the phrase started to circulate widely through the internet, an edited version of the phrase began to spread, featuring edited photos containing Whitebeard and his One Piece pals, all with large genitalia. Most of these images came in the wake of Dhlinez’s original piece.
On July 24th, the first version of one of these edited Whitebeard videos was posted to YouTube channel Boxneti on July 24th, 2022. The clip garnered over 10k views over its first two months.
One piece is real memes continued to spread on TikTok, when account Pwnchy uploaded a popular clip featuring Alvin from Alvin and the Chipmunks screaming the phrase in typical, sped-up chipmunk fashion on July 31st, 2022.
@pwnchy #fyp #THEONEPIECEISREAL #onepiece #???? ♬ THE ONE PIECE IS REAL - pwnchy
A few weeks later, DeanDealsMang posted a now-semi-iconic Cameo on Reddit of actor Patrick Fabian (Howard Hamlin himself on Better Call Saul) being prompted to say “the one piece is real.” The Reddit post gained 23k upvotes in a single month.
howing hamler
byu/DeanDealsMang inokbuddychicanery
Gradually, the “one piece is real” Whitebeard clip began incorporating Kanye West’s “Dark Fantasy,” specifically focusing on the line "can we get much higher, so high.” The videos using the song featured popular cock edits of the One Piece characters (many from old friend @onepiececock) tying the meme’s history to its present.
Worlds collided when, on August 25th, TikToker @eijaks posted an edit of the Cameo featuring the "Dark Fantasy" verse, which plays as it transitions to the image of Whitebeard. The post gained over 600k views in a month. Around this time, the phrase became a popular spam comment ok TikTok.
@eijaks #bettercallsaul #breakingbad #onepiece #howardhamlin #theonepieceisreal ♬ original sound - eijaks
Over the following weeks, “the one piece is real” inspired several edits, many featuring very specifically censored versions of the so-called “Cock Edit,” in which the offending body parts are just off-screen. An example of this was posted on August 28 by TikToker @.alessi0, who created an edit of the NSFW images which got over 3.4 million views in its first month.
@.alessi0 THE ONE PIECE IS REAAAL!!! #onepieceedit #onepiece #shitposting #shitpostmeme #theonepieceisreal #meme ♬ Dark Fantasy - Kanye West
The next day, a video showed up on YouTube, posted by Lessons in Meme Culture, exploring the background of the meme. The video garnered over 885k views in a month. Two days later, YouTuber NoThisisnot Joel posted an edit of the feature that saw over 800k views over a month and has 3.3 million views to date.
Following The One Piece Is Real's explosion in popularity in the summer of 2022, the meme became huge in the world of redraws in September 2022. On the 25th of that month, @sealc4nfly on Twitter posted the first known “one piece is real” redraw, featuring a Chainsaw Man version. The image saw over 14.5k retweets and 102k likes in its first two weeks. From this, the Chopper Crying redraws also blossomed.
The next day, @AndromedaZach posted a redraw themed to Pokemon on Twitter featuring three of the images with the caption, "CAN WE GET MUCH HIGHER.” The post got over 3,000 likes in only three days.
The day after that, on September 27th, Twitter user @joeriiin took the idea the Legend of Zelda route, redrawing four regularly used images in that style. The post received 65k likes in two days. Of all the One Piece redraws, however, Chopper Crying became the most popular.
@ungainlyyy_ “Even after death, his body remained up straight. The final tally of sword wounds he received was no less than 267 Number of gunshot wounds 152 He was struck by cannon balls 46 times” And fought all 3 admirals. Indeed the greatest pirate #onepiece #theonepieceisreal #whitebeard #luffy #golddroger #golddace???? #anime #fyp #nerdemoji???? ♬ original sound - UngainlytheLightskin
@the._will.of.the_.d the one piece is real you just have to find it #onepiece #whitebeard #meme #fypシ #fyp ♬ original sound - justanime__idk
@plantsguys Time to be the Pirate King ☠️ #onepiece #theonepieceisreal #elizabeth #pirateking ♬ nhạc nền - Tuân Ngô
@angel_of_mercy0 The One Piece is real! ~ Whitebeard #anime #fyp #fypシ #foryou #angelofmercy #animeita #onepiece #animetiktok #whitebeard #onepieceisreal ♬ suono originale - AngelOfMercy
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