Family Guy Effect

About

The Family Guy Effect is a postulated phenomenon that claims when an Internet meme is showcased on the show Family Guy, the meme will see a brief burst in popularity, followed by an immediate sharp decline. Prior to being associated with Internet meme exposure, the Family Guy effect was used to describe how a joke becomes less funny when repeated over time.

Origin

The first Urban Dictionary^[1] definition for “The Family Guy effect” was submitted on August 22nd, 2008.

Do something funny. Continue to do so until said activity is no longer funny. Continue to do so until said activity is funny again. Repeat.

On July 27th, 2009, the arts and culture blog Bygone Bureau^[5] posted an interview with writer Nathan Rabin who mentions the Family Guy effect in relation to pop culture references:

“Pop culture references can be such a dead end, too. I think there’s such as thing as the Family Guy effect, where if the reference is random and doesn’t have an emotional center to it, then it becomes very empty.”

The earliest known reference to the Family Guy Effect in the context of Internet memes was posted by former Know Your Meme community manager Chris Menning in the meme research forums on July 30th, 2009. In the thread, researcher TheGhostOfRichieRich questioned how to handle the documentation of memes that have been exposed to mainstream attention, citing the Family Guy episode featuring Chuck Norris as an example. Menning replied to the original post by calling this phenomenon “The Family Guy effect."

Spread

On August 27th, 2010, a TV Tropes^[4] page was created for memes that have fallen out of favor with pop culture called “Discredited Meme”, which mentions the effect. A thread about the phenomenon was posted to the Bungie^[2] video game forums on July 19th, 2011. On September 26th, 2011, a clip from an episode of Family Guy in which Trololol Guy makes an appearance was submitted to FunnyJunk.^[3] User pyrothermal commented to the post saying “Well, that’s another meme dead due to the Family Guy effect.”

Examples

On September 27th, 2005, the first Internet meme to appear on Family Guy was in the episode “Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story” in which Wilford Brimley says “diabeetus”.

On November 20th, 2005, the episode “The Courtship of Stewie’s Father” aired in which the dog character Brian dresses up in a banana costume and performs the song Peanut Butter Jelly Time (shown left). On April 29th, 2007, the episode “Boys Don’t Cry” aired in which Chuck Norris makes a cameo appearance during a Chuck Norris facts joke (shown right).

Other Internet memes that have been referenced on Family Guy include Christian Bale rants, Rickroll, Trololol and Flea Market Montgomery was seen in the Family Guy spinoff The Cleveland Show.

Search Interest

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External References