“I Can’t. Not Again. I’m…Not Strong Enough”

About

“I Can’t. Not Again. I’m…Not Strong Enough.” is a memorable quote uttered by Mr. Incredible in the 2004 computer-animated superhero film The Incredibles. A screen capture of the character saying the line has been used as a reaction image macro to express exhaustion or reluctance based on previous experience.

Origin

On November 5th, 2004, the Pixar film The Incredibles was released in the United States. In the film, Mr. Incredible explains why he does not want his wife, Elastigirl (voiced by Craig T. Nelson and Holly Hunter, respectively), joining him in the film’s final fight scene for fear of losing her (clip below). He says, “I can’t. Not again. I’m…not strong enough.

Spread

On January 19th, 2013, Tumblr user mydollyaviana posted a series of screen captures from the scene (excerpt below, left). In six years, the post received more than 600,000 notes.

Three years later, on April 15th, 2016, Tumblr user snowcaines posted the image as a reaction to the caption “*hands in assignment* *gets a new assignment on the same day.*” The post received more than 150,000 notes in three years (shown below, center).

Later that month, on April 27th, Facebook user LZmarking posted a variation that’s captioned “When people ask if you’ll serve another four years.” The post received more than 1,900 reactions, 120 comments and 730 shares in three years (shown below, right).

Two years later, on February 10th, 2018, Redditor Genius_gamer2k posted a variation on the /r/DDLC subreddit. They captioned the image “When the subreddit is full of incredibly cute good ganart and all you can make is low effort memes and shitposts.” The post received more than 885 points (98% upvoted) and 50 comments (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References