About
Pregnancy Announcement, also known as “Pregnancy Test” (Japanese: 妊娠検査薬) or “Pregnancy Collage” (妊娠コラ), refers to a photoshop meme based on an exploitable image of a pregnancy test strip indicating a positive result, which can be superimposed over various illustrations of fictional anime characters. The meme began circulating on Twitter on October 2014.
Origin
According to archived discussions[1][2] from the Japanese imageboard site Futaba Channel (2chan), the photoshop meme originally began as a minor fad sometime in the summer of 2014, but it didn’t take off until the blank template image was posted on Twitter[4] by @Gorxxx_[3] on October 15th, 2014.
Spread
Due to the low entry barrier in participation, several dozens of instances featuring a wide range of fictional characters of all sexes, illustrated and live-action, began showing up on Twitter, Tumblr and deviantART[10] under the Japanese hashtags “#妊娠検査薬”, “#妊娠検査薬コラ”, “#妊娠コラ,”[5] and the English hashtag “#PregnancyAnnouncement”.[6][7] The photoshop meme quickly spread to other popular Japanese illustrators’ communities like pixiv[8] and Nico Nico Seiga.[9] Within first 48 hours, the “pregnancy announcement” meme was covered by a number of J-Pop news sites and Gawker’s Otaku-culture news site Kotaku.[11]
Various Examples
Winning Bar Announcement
Winning Bar Announcement is a derivative of Pregnancy Announcement where characters have a winning bar of popsicle instead of a pregnancy test kit. It was proposed by Twitter user @AlwaysSmile187[12] on the following day of Pregnancy Announcement explosion.
妊娠検査薬だと気持ち悪いからガリガリ君当たり棒位にしときなさい pic.twitter.com/c6ll3FZEp7
— 最強のDT@琳狗嫌い (@AlwaysSmile187) October 16, 2014
Translation
Pregnancy test is so creepy. Take a winning bar, instead.
His tweet was received favorably among the people having same uncomfortable feeling to that meme. Winning Bar Announcement bacame popular as a wholesome photoshop meme without sexual nuance as well, and it’s commonly called as “Gari Gari Kun Winning Bar” (ガリガリ君当たり棒)[13] on Twitter, which “Gari Gari Kun” is the name of a Japanese popular popsicle.
Search Interest
External References
[1]いもげばこ – 姫様貼って寝る / Posted on 09-09-2014 (Thread archive, Japanese)
[2]ふたばログギャラリー – 孕ませスレ妊娠検査薬の結果に興奮したり妊娠・受精・着床・ / Posted on 09-12-2014 (Thread archive, Japanese)
[3]Twitter – ご (@Gorxxx_)
[4]Twitter – ご (@Gorxxx_) on Twitter: "素材です。 pic.twitter.com/rm176LjQID" / Posted on 10-15-2014 (defunct)
[5]Twitter Search – #妊娠検査薬 OR #妊娠検査薬コラ OR #妊娠コラ
[6]Twitter Search – #PregnancyAnnouncement
[7]Tumblr – Search results for the tag PregnancyAnnouncement
[8]pixiv – Search results for the tag 妊娠検査薬
[9]Nico Nico Seiga – Search results for the tag 妊娠検査薬
[10]deviantART – Search results for the keywords pregnancy meme
[11]Kotaku – Anime Characters Announcing They're Pregnant Is a New Meme / 10-17-2014
[12]Twitter – 最強のDT@琳狗嫌い (@AlwaysSmile187)