About
Whomst is a fake word used to signal ironic superior intelligence, similar to the me, an intellectualsnowclone. In early 2017, “whomst” images pairing the word with pictures of people photoshopped to have bright purple eyes a la Gordon Ramsay’s Lamb Sauce grew popular on meme-focused subreddits.
Origin
On June 2nd, 2016, lighting guy submitted a definition of “whomst” to Urban Dictionary[1] that reads, “For times when you want to ask ‘who or whom’, but need a fancier connotation.”
The earliest known sarcastic use of the word was posted to Instagram on December 27th, 2016, by fkinsnapss,[2] who used it to caption of a video of a man walking with his pants extremely high up on his waist while the X-files theme music played (shown below).
Spread
On January 21st, 2017, Instagram user b3pis[3] posted what would become the most popular example of the “whomst” meme. In the image, a boy shows increasingly pleased reactions to variations on “who,” ending with a glowing purple eyed reaction to “whomst’d” (shown below). The post has gained 2,669 likes on Instagram as of February 1st, 2017.
The image set a precedent for “Whomst” memes to be used in a similar vein as the #UpgradeChallenge, where one image compares a small-minded “person who does X” with a comically large-brained “person whomst does Y” (ex: shown below).
Other variations on the meme include making “whomst” even longer and more nonsensical, i.e. “whomst’d’ve.” On Janurary 31st, 2017, redditor Julien2000 posted a comment to /r/MemeEconomy of the original “whomst image” titled, “Whomst’d memes are on the rise! Whomst’d’ve’s’nd would not want to invest this in amazing offer! Buy! Buy! Buy! But beware of demand side inflation!”[4]
Various Examples
