“Never in a million years did I expect The Boys to blow up the way that it did, much less this meme,” he said. “It’s exciting and it’s weird.”
The Boys satirizes the superhero genre. The supernaturally gifted have been monetized and marketed by a powerful corporation, and a vigilante group (the titular Boys) is working to end their corruption. One of the most corrupt heroes is Homelander, played by actor Antony Starr, a Supermanlike character with an intense desire to be adored, who appears on a broadcast news program to rail against the mainstream media.
The meme comes from a brutal scene: Attendees in a rally, clothed in American flags to match Homelander’s costume and carrying on-the-nose anti-snowflake and “America first” signage. A counterprotester hits Homelander’s young son in the head with a can after calling the superhero a “fascist.” Homelander immediately zaps him with laser vision, killing him.
One man claps, and the rest of the crowd follows with applause. Then we see the face from the meme — shock over the murder he has just committed followed by delight when he realizes his fans endorse his elimination of an opposing party.
Twitter user @callouswayne posted the first viral instance of the clip from The Boys on July 12, four days after it appeared in the finale of the third season. She told BuzzFeed News she was thrilled that it became “one of the biggest bangers on Film Twitter” and said the she’s seen numerous people tweet that the meme’s ubiquity convinced them to watch the show.
We don’t get the full context of the character’s shortcomings as a milk-drinking murderer through the meme, though. To those who haven’t seen the show, it’s just a highly expressive range of emotions, similar to that of the “Kombucha girl” and “white guy blinking” memes of yesteryear.
Source: https://www.buzzfeed.com/kelseyweekman/homelander-the-boys-twitter-meme-applause
