Wide World Leaders Walking | Know Your Meme

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About

Wide World Leaders Walking is a series of manipulated videos that feature figureheads from numerous world governments stretched horizontally. Following the success of the meme, people began uploading videos of other cultural figures walking edited to appear wide.

Origin

The earliest known version of the meme is Wide Putin Walking, which comes from footage of Vladimir Putin’s fourth term inauguration, which was streamed by RT on May 7th, 2018. The oldest recorded instance of Putin Walking edits was uploaded on Telegram to the channel “Ручка” on February 2nd, 2020, by user ToThePan (seen below). This original version also features the track “Song For Denise” (Maxi) used in the later versions.

In June 2020, following the spread of the Wide Putin video, other videos began posting variations of the meme. On June 9th, 2020, YouTuber FlobySop64 shared the video “Wide World Leaders Walking,” which received more than 721,000 views in less than three months (shown below).

Spread

Following the release of the video, people began posting clips and compilations of other world leaders. For example, on June 14th, YouTuber Nima shared “Top 10 Wide Presidents Walking.” The post received more than 3.1 million views in less than three months (shown below, left). That day, YouTuber GrayWalf shared “Wide Trump Walking,” which received more than 568,000 views in less than three months (shown below, right).

Others shared versions of the meme using different cultural figures. On June 14th, YouTuber Likon shared “Wide Hitman Walking,” featuring the video game character Agent 47. The post received more than 889,000 views in less than three months (shown below).