How Winnie the Pooh Became the Most Relatable Meme

Who doesn’t love Winnie the Pooh? (Trick question!)

Everyone loves Winnie the Pooh.

Pooh nodding his head while pointing to what I wrote. He agrees that everyone loves him! – Source

If you don’t know who Winnie the Pooh is, I’m not sure where you’ve been… Winnie the Pooh is a fictional teddy bear created by the author, A. A. Milne, who wrote a whole collection of children’s stories about the character back in the 1920s.

I think the reason why Winnie the Pooh is still so popular is because the characters are so relatable. Pooh is so naive, slow-witted, and is known as “a bear of very little brain.” All these qualities that Pooh depict are what make us love him and what brought about the genius idea of turning our favourite childhood character into a meme.

The meme I find the most entertaining is the “Winnie the Pooh Reading” meme:

Meme of Pooh squinting, looking confused and uninterested in what he is reading. – Source

About:

The “Winnie the Pooh Reading” meme is exactly what the title sets it out to be: it is a picture of Pooh Bear reading a piece of paper. The image is taken from a scene in the Winnie the Pooh animated television series, where he looks quite puzzled about what he is reading.

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Origin:

On December 1, 2012, a self-proclaimed memer, known as Sweetleafx, submitted the image to a social networking company, DeviantArt. He has been credited for bringing the image into the public’s attention.

Upon the memer’s post of this image, people immediately began to find the image hilarious and started to add different captions to it. Different versions of this meme then also started to become popular using the different facial expressions that Pooh made in that same scene.

Pooh looking shocked and upset about what he is reading. – Source

Pooh is just “not having it” with what is written. We’ve all made this face at one point. – Source

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Meaning:

The meme has been used in many contexts. One of the contexts is when it is difficult to understand what one is reading. For example, when you’re trying to read a doctor’s writing and you can’t understand it, you would make that confused face.

I used the meme to create a perfect representation of how confused I felt when I read the instructions for Blog Post #4.

Another popular meaning of this meme is to show a careless attitude — or in other words, excuse my language, “not giving a f*ck.” I think this one is the most popular one, as incorporating cuss words with such an innocent character from our childhood creates a very comical concept.

Pooh questioning “what the f*ck” he is reading. He really does not care about what’s written. – Source

Lastly, the meme is also frequently used with the caption “Showing My Mom a Funny Meme.” This is because the meme just perfectly captures what moms look like when you show them something on your phone. Moms almost always squint and look confused about what they are reading, and they don’t quite get what a meme is.

An image of Pooh representing what moms look like when they are reading a meme. – Source

This meaning became really popular with the younger generation. They started showing their mom the meme and videotaping their reaction. Here is a twitter video that demonstrates it perfectly:

I HAD TO 😂😂😂😭😂😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/h8wiXallLJ

— missperu🇵🇪 (@kweenngee) April 23, 2019

Clearly, our much loved Winnie the Pooh has made a reappearance in our teenage/young-adult lives. We loved him then and we love him even more now. I strongly suggest you look at all the other Pooh memes there are out there. Pooh is just one hilarious bear, and a little nostalgia never hurt nobody!