Dude! Let Me In! I'm A Fairy!

About

Dude! Let me in! I’m a fairy! is a group of various different images, usually with a characters or animals looking through a window or door, with the phrase “Dude! Let me in! I’m a fairy!” on them. The meme is based off two panels from Junji Ito’s Frankenstein where the orginaal text has been replaced with the phrases “Dude! Let me in! I’m a Fairy!” and “Don’t you believe in fairies?”

Origin

The panels originally show up in Junji Ito’s “The Junji Ito Horror Comic Collection” Volume 16: Frankenstein (フランケンシュタイン). The original run of the Manga was published from 1994 to 1998, with the collected edition also being published in 1998.^[1] The story is a loose adaptation of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel: Frankenstein.
These panels show up on page 176 of the complete collection. In it, it show’s Frankenstein’s monster laughing at Doctor Victor Frankenstein after he discovers that his father and his fiance were killed by the monster

During or prior to 2002, the text “Dude! Let me in! I’m a Fairy!” was added to the first panel, with the text “Don’t you believe in fairies?” added to the second panel.

Spread

It is unknown exactly where or when the original edited text version of this meme came from. One of the oldest known postings of the image was posted on the /b/ board of 4chan on June 9th 2002, with a story about how “This dude tried to break into my house last night through the window at 2am.”

It has since spread to various other sites such as FunnyJunk^[2], Reddit^[5], and Bodybuilding.com^[6].There are several different kinds of variants, ranging from adding different characters to the original panels, completely redrawing the same panels with different settings and characters, to screenshots and photos with the caption “Dude! Let me in! I’m a Fairy!” These may or may not include the phrase “Don’t you believe in fairies?”

There was also a slight rise in popularity of this meme after the announcement of Fairy Type Pokémon starting with Pokémon X and Y, with various different versions using Fairy Type Pokémon in place of Frankenstein’s monster. The oldest know version of this was posted by AsgardGoddess in February 2013 on /r/pokemon^[4] replacing the monster’s face with that of newly announced Fairy Type Pokemon Sylveon.

Variants

Dude! Let me in! Its me! Mittens! is a similar concept, and likely spawned from Dude! Let me in! I’m a fairy! These images are often photos of various wild animals looking into the windows and doors of houses, similar to a house cat wanting to come inside. The caption “It’s me! Mittens!” refers to the fact that “mittens” is a common name for pet owners to give cats. The first known version of this was posted by on June 14th 2012 on Daily Picks and Flicks.^[3]