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The Thousand Yard Stare meme depicts a World War II soldier staring intensely with a look of dissociation and trauma, reflecting the term coined to describe the distant, unfocused gaze often associated with PTSD in combat soldiers. The term originated from Thomas Lea's painting 'The 2,000 Yard Stare', which captures the profound psychological effects of battle. Memetic use of this haunting expression became popular in the early 2020s, evolving into various exploitable formats and redraws like the Kurt Angle 1,000 Yard Stare and The Lorax 1,000 Yard Stare. The image is often used on social media platforms like Twitter (now X) to symbolize extreme stress or mentally overwhelming situations and is a favored reaction image among gimmick accounts and in Schizoposting context.
The Thousand Yard Stare meme traces back to the iconic 1944 painting by American artist Thomas Lea titled 'The 2,000 Yard Stare', which illustrates the battle-worn gaze of an unnamed U.S. Marine during World War II at the Battle of Peleliu. This painting gained historical significance after being featured in a 1944 issue of LIFE magazine. The image transitioned into meme culture following a notable instance on October 11th, 2014, when a Reddit user made a reference to the 'thousand yard stare' in a comment under a humorously edited photo on the /r/funny subreddit. This marked the beginning of the image's use as a template for various humorous and psychological posts in meme communities online. Further details about the original painting can be found here and its mention in LIFE magazine is documented here.
Origin: 2014
AI Memes is a free online meme maker that lets you create viral memes with custom text, images, and AI-powered editing tools.
You can browse our growing library of popular meme templates, quickly caption images, videos, or GIFs in Caption This, or design completely custom image memes from scratch in our free-form editor with extra AI tools like Magic Prompt, Magic Face Swap, Magic Erase, and Magic Face.
The platform includes three main tools:
Text is fully customizable with font selection, weight controls, colors, and styling like outlines and italics. Each text layer has its own opacity slider, and you can drag text around the canvas or drag layers in the sidebar to control which elements appear on top. Add as many text boxes as you need with the "Add Text" button.
Upload and layer additional images onto your meme with the "Upload Image" button. Each image can be repositioned, resized, and have its opacity adjusted. Paste images directly with CMD/CTRL + V for quick edits.
Enable custom headers above your media with adjustable colors and heights—perfect for adding context or reaction text. This works in both Caption This and when editing templates from the meme library.
Yes! Use Caption This to add text, headers, and captions to videos and animated GIFs. Simply upload your video or GIF file, add your customizations, and download the finished meme. The tool preserves the animation and exports your captioned video or animated GIF ready to share.
You can also upload your own videos and animated GIFs in Caption This to add captions and text overlays. The meme template library features hundreds of popular image templates that open in the same editor with all the same customization options.
All our tools work well on mobile! Whether you're on desktop, tablet, or phone, AI Memes is fully optimized for your device. Create memes on your phone during your commute or design on your computer—the interface adapts seamlessly to your screen size. Caption This, the meme template library, and the full editor all work perfectly on touchscreens with intuitive drag-and-drop controls and mobile-friendly buttons.
Yes! There are tons of use cases to use AI Memes for outside of memes. The tools work great for any image, GIF, or video editing needs. Create tutorial screenshots with text annotations, add subtitles to explainer videos, design eye-catching YouTube thumbnails, caption product demos, build Instagram story templates, or create branded video content for your business. If you need to put text or images on media quickly, AI Memes has you covered.
AI Memes supports PNG, JPG, and WEBP images, MP4 videos, and animated GIFs. Your download will match your upload format—bring us an image, get an image back; bring us a video, get a video back; bring us a GIF, get a GIF back.
No account required! You can start creating memes immediately without signing up. Simply visit any tool, upload or select a template, customize it, and download. However, creating a free account gives you access to features like saved projects and your meme creation history. Upgrading to AI Memes Pro removes the AI Memes watermark from your downloads and unlocks tons of powerful AI features in the full editor.
