The would meme consists of photos of a person, animal, or anything with a mouth, typically speaking into a microphone, with a caption that simply says "would." This may confuse anyone who is not chronically online and is unfamiliar with the concept of "hornyposting."
For the rest of us, we understand that this single word is meant as a declaration that the person posting the meme is willing to engage in sexual contact with whomever the image is referring to.
The exact origins of the use of the word "would" as shorthand for "I would have sex with that person" is unknown. People have been using it on and offline for many years to the point that it's not a meme in and of itself, but more of a colloquialism.
The earliest use of the term in an undeniable meme format occurred in September 2022 on the Twitter account dedicated to reaction images and gifs. Like many memes, this tweet featured a cat doing something silly, and as a result, the trend is often referred to as the "would cat meme."
After that autumn day, the trend of posting anyone or anything speaking into a mic spread rapidly on social media. You will be able to find this meme on any such website that is prone to reaction images, such as Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr.
On social media fandom spaces, the meme will likely be tailored to the subject of that fandom, producing a wide range of variations from many different TV shows, films, video games, comic books, and other popular or obscure media.
Meme historians often point to the date of September 28, 2022, as the meme's birthday, when the Twitter account @reactjpg posted a photo of an orange tabby cat in an office chair with its paws on the table behind a microphone with the word as a caption.
The unknown feline appears to be rubbing or scratching its nose against the mic, making it look like it's about to say something very significant, perhaps to a committee of government cats or an adorable kitty court.
Another popular form involves a photo from an unusual moment in the Japanese Parliament from 2018. The image shows Chairman of the Judicial Affairs Committee Shinichi Yokoyama clinging to a table mic and speaking into it while an entire crowd of people behind him appear to be trying to wrestle it away from him.
This provides an additional layer of comedy to the meme, with the underlying message stating that the poster is willing to fight several people to speak their opinion on the desirability of the subject in question.
Reporters captured this moment on December 8, 2018, when Yokoyama attempted to hold a vote on a controversial immigration reform bill. The bill would revise the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act to give foreign workers a path to Japanese citizenship. The opposition party to then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe abhorred this idea enough that they attempted to stop Chairman Yokoyama from bringing the issue to a vote at all, resulting in the photo.
The bill did ultimately pass despite the vigorous objections from the opposition.
The meme's simplicity and flexibility make it perfect for adaptation to any particular situation, and there are an incalculable number of variations. Not all involve microphones, and there has been plenty of mixing with other meme formats.
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