How Do You Do, Fellow Kids?: A meme history
The How Do You Do, Fellow Kids meme is a gif from 30 Rock depicting actor Steve Buscemi dressed as a hip teen, holding a skateboard with a backward red cap in a high school hallway. It is commonly used to react to people or online entities acting as part of a community they are definitely not, and is accompanied with a caption reading "How do you do, fellow kids?"
Usually, the image is doctored or photoshopped to get specific about a situation or subculture. The image also often serves as shorthand for a poor and obvious disguise. Often, the phrase also stands on its own without the image.
Where did 'How Do You Do, Fellow Kids?' come from?
How Do You Do Fellow Kids is from the NBC sitcom 30 Rock. It’s taken from the eighth episode of the show’s sixth season, entitled “The Tuxedo Begins.” The episode originally aired on February 16th, 2012, and features Buscemi reprising his role as private detective Lenny Wosniak, who does work for Alec Baldwin’s Jack Donaghy.
The clip arises when Lenny reminisces about a previous job where he had to go undercover at a high school, 21 Jump Street style. At that moment, the show cuts to a flashback of Wosniak in action in what he believes is a successful disguise: the now iconic “Music Band” AC/DC-style shirt, the backward cap, and the skateboard over his shoulder.
However, Buscemi was 55 years young during the filming of this episode. Combining that with the actor’s naturally distinctive face, the obvious shoddiness of the disguise is pushed over the top.
Spread of the meme
In Spring 2012, a screencap of the 'How Do You Do, Fellow Kids' moment began to appear online in 30 Rock fan communities and, as the show was wrapping up its final episodes, it was often featured on lists of the show’s funniest moments. Its life as a reaction image grew from there.
On October 11th, 2012, the site We Know Memes posted the image (now removed), which was shared more than 22k times. The image became frequently used on 4Chan, including 57 times on the /v/ (video games) board. However, Tumblr is where How Do You Do Fellow Kids spread its wings, with four separate blogs starting with that exact title.
On Imgur, the image in still or GIF form gained over 100k views in short order. The How Do You Do Fellow Kids fandom took things to a deeper level when replicas of Buscemi’s “Music/Band” shirt began appearing on sites like RedBubble and Skreened for purchase.
On August 2nd, 2014, the subreddit /r/FellowKids was started by Redditors three_am, dillonfbecker and Urplescurple. The group was dedicated specifically to examples of individuals or corporations trying to be “hip” with the youths. Within its first three years, the group had more than 194k subscribers.
On May 26th, 2016, a Facebook post by Bagel Bites’ official account featuring an older man dressed as Buscemi in the meme was posted to /r/FellowKids. The post was captioned "God, this is really meta… and I like it” and quickly received 27k points and 200 comments. The image also made its way to Imgur, where it got more than 1.6 million views and 6k points.
The meme was spotlighted a year later in an article in the Verve published on June 13, 2017. The piece explored that the meme had become the very thing it was meant to ridicule, with examples like the Bagel Bites ad proving the point.
The article also noted that the meme is now “more popular now than it was when the show it referenced was still a Thursday night staple for a national television audience that had so far seen only two Netflix original series and had never heard the phrase 'peak TV.'”
Either way, the ubiquity of the meme didn't stop Steve Buscemi from literally dressing up as it for one Halloween.
Brands pandering to Gen Z killed the 'How Do You Do, Fellow Kids?' meme
More 'How Do You Do, Fellow Kids?' meme examples
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