Shrek TV | Know Your Meme

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Starting in 2015, Shrek TV has frequently appeared as a topic of discussion in /r/ctrgaming and /r/Shrek subreddits, with users either sharing photographs of their Shrek TVs after acquiring one, or inquiring about ways of purchasing one. For example, on April 18th, 2018, Redditor iToxBoy posted an inquiry about purchasing Shrek TV in /r/ctrgaming, with the post gaining 13 upvotes. On February 19th, 2019, Redditor Argonile posted a photograph of a Shrek TV, asking if they should buy it. The post gained over 1,200 upvotes in /r/Shrek.

On August 13th, 2017, Amino user Fritzyboi posted the earliest known meme in which an image was edited onto the Shrek TV’s screen. The post, in which a still image from Japan Airlines Flight 123 documentary was edited in, gained 16 likes (shown below, left).

On September 2nd, 2017, Redditor the_killingjoke posted a meme in which a still image from the 2015 film Mad Max: Fury Road was edited onto the screen, captioning it “Watching old kinos the way Nolan intended,” a version of Watching the Way Nolan Intended meme. The post (shown below, right) received over 130 likes in the /r/moviecirclejerk subreddit.

On August 13th, 2018, ShitpostBot 5000 user NAF added a photograph of Shrek TV as a template.

On June 8th, 2020, Redditor coolCriCri posted a photograph of their Shrek TV displaying a plain white image in the /r/TriftStoreHauls subreddit. The photograph later was used as a meme template.

The format did not see further use until March 3rd, 2021, when Redditor NegativePiglet8 posted an edit in which an image of The Lighthouse character Thomas Wake was edited onto the screen. The post (shown below) received over 1,300 upvotes in the /r/A24 subreddit in three months, with a Tumblr repost gaining over 12,900 likes and reblogs in the same period.

On March 5th, 2021, Twitter user @PalestDame posted a Watching the Way Nolan Intended version of the meme with a still image from The Irishman edited onto the screen. The post (shown below, right) gained over 19,200 retweets and 213,300 likes in three months.

In the following months, the format gained notable presence on Twitter and Reddit, with users editing in still images from various media onto the Shrek TV screen. In many examples, Watching the Way Nolan Intended format has been used.

On March 27th, 2021, YouTuber Ricky Berwick posted a video “I GOT A SHREK TV” that gained over 278,000 views in three months (shown below, left). In the following months, Berwick made multiple videos in which he played various video games on the TV (example shown below, right).