2013·The social era
The Shrek fandom
An animated ogre became the patron saint of ironic internet devotion, for no reason anybody has satisfactorily explained.
You might remember it as Shrek is love Shrek is life
A trend people joined in with
- SourceNo single original
- MediaNot held by ViralWorld
What this was
From around 2009 an internet subculture formed around DreamWorks' Shrek films — not as fans of the films in any ordinary sense, but as a sustained performance of excessive devotion. Its members called themselves Brogres. The material ranges from remix and fan art to a great deal that is deliberately unpleasant, and the 2013 video that gave the fandom its catchphrase is a metameme built on an anonymous imageboard post.
It first appeared in 2013, during the social era.
It is the clearest specimen of ironic fandom as a form: an audience choosing something with no cultural prestige and performing love for it until the performance becomes indistinguishable from the real thing. New York magazine called Shrek one of the patron saints of dank memedom, and the franchise's own marketing eventually started answering back.
Shrek has stayed in continuous circulation for over fifteen years — as remix, as a rendering target, as a running joke about the character's ubiquity — outlasting every meme that started alongside it. DreamWorks has leaned into it rather than fighting it.
More from 2013
- What Does the Fox Say 2013The social era
- Spooky, Scary Skeletons 2013The social era
- Space Oddity from the ISS 2013The social era
- Kid President 2013The social era
- Rappin' for Jesus 2013The social era
- This is fine 2013The social era
- Dogecoin 2013The social era
- r/AmItheAsshole 2013The social era
- Doge 2013The social era
- The Wealdstone Raider 2013The social era
The social era
- Smash Mouth All Star 2014The social era
- Ecce Homo of Borja 2012The social era
- Rebecca Black Friday 2011The social era
- Little Darth Vader 2011The social era
- Wojak 2010The social era
- Darude Sandstorm 2014The social era
- Press F to Pay Respects 2014The social era
- Twitch Plays Pokémon 2014The social era
- Mutant Giant Spider Dog 2014The social era
Related
Nothing related yet. Relationships are recorded where evidence supports them, not inferred from similarity.
Behind the recordWhere it came from
There is no original to identify: this spread through many separate posts at once rather than from a first one. ViralWorld holds no copy of it either — what it was, when it spread and what people called it is the record.
Nothing here is claimed to be the first version of this, because research established there was not one — it appeared in many places at once.
Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.
- What happens
- From around 2009 an internet subculture formed around DreamWorks' Shrek films — not as fans of the films in any ordinary sense, but as a sustained performance of excessive devotion. Its members called themselves Brogres. The material ranges from remix and fan art to a great deal that is deliberately unpleasant, and the 2013 video that gave the fandom its catchphrase is a metameme built on an anonymous imageboard post.