AboutWhat does the meme depict?

The Masturbating Spider-Man meme consists of an image macro that uses an edited screenshot from the 1960s Spider-Man animated series. This particular image depicts Spider-Man sitting at a desk, which has been manipulated from its original context. The meme format typically features the phrase 'And I'm Just Sitting Here Masturbating' as a bottom caption, akin to other advice animal memes like Bear Grylls.

OriginWho did it first?

The screenshot for the Masturbating Spider-Man meme originates from an episode of the 1967 Spider-Man animated series titled 'Electro The Human Lightning Bolt.' In this episode, there's a specific scene where Spider-Man is ducking under a desk while combating Electro. This scene can be seen at the 1:40 mark in this video. The first use of the image as a meme template appeared on Meme Generator on October 18th, 2011. However, the familiar caption associated with the meme, 'And I'm Just Sitting Here Masturbating,' was not used in this initial instance. The meme gained significant traction on August 14th, 2012, when a Reddit post by yakkers09 facetiously juxtaposed the image with a comment on the vibrancy of others' social lives, coupled with the meme's now-characteristic caption. This post quickly accumulated over 12,800 upvotes and received 215 comments, solidifying the meme's popularity.^[1]

Origin: 2012