r/comedyheaven • u/abandonedtulpa • 17h ago

cake day

Post image
21.7k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

221 comments sorted by

2.5k

u/CarmenxXxWaldo 17h ago

"i have cancer"

redditors : "the narwal bacons at midnight"

471

u/AgentCirceLuna 16h ago

It’s crazy how that was mocked far sooner than anyone took it seriously yet everyone who came after seems to think it was some actual coded message people used lol

173

u/Naclstack 15h ago

I just read about the history of that phrase and in the earliest posts it seems to be a genuine thing poeple were saying

207

u/ThruTexasYouandMe 15h ago

I was there, 3,000 years ago. they were definitely being serious for a short while with that

20

u/brainburger 8h ago

I was there too, and I never took it seriously. Reddit just seemed to have a lot of narwal and bacon posts in the early days. Someone was at an airport and wondered if any other redditors were there. And someone joked that should be the secret greeting.

I have actually used it once when meeting a redditor, he replied correctly, and we were both joking.

Seriously, go back and find the original comment. I did a few years back and it's a joke.

2

u/Bocchi_theGlock 1h ago

Bacon reader was a whole 3rd party app

2

u/NibblesMcGiblet 4h ago

I just typed the question into google asking the origin of the phrase, and google's AI replied and said basically what you just said, but then asked me if I was interested in other reddit memes like the "broken arms thread". That was a fucking wild AI interaction. edit - for fun, I asked it to tell me about the broken arms thread, which it did, then asked i I'd like to know about "I also choose this guy's dead wife". I think the only thing google AI is good for is amusing me with known reddit lore.

55

u/Version_Two 14h ago

Good times back then. Remember that guy who sold that shitty copper?

31

u/PurpleCandle58 13h ago

I scrobe him a tablet. No reply.

9

u/Sea-Animator4250 12h ago

Remember the safe!?

7

u/Acceptable-Drive3781 12h ago

I was too busy making 2am chili.

6

u/Ongr 10h ago

I was having a terrible headache and reading mystery post-it notes someone left around my house.

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11

u/Scumbag__ 7h ago

People do not remember 2013. Moustaches were tattooed on peoples fingers. People wore fedoras unironically. Le random was the height of humour.

I only wonder how cringe the bounce back from the next recession will be.

17

u/AgentCirceLuna 14h ago

Sort of… I was there and I remember it was mocked pretty quickly.

14

u/GeneralBlumpkin 15h ago

Same lol I even said it to a friend when I found out he uses reddit and he had no idea what I was talking about

20

u/ThruTexasYouandMe 15h ago

That's cause you were a better Redditor than he was lol

3

u/BikerJedi 8h ago

Ditto. One of my favorite things about reddit was that silly saying.

47

u/Hoiafar 15h ago

Oh yeah. I was a teenager when it was a thing and used it to identify other redditors on Omegle etc. It was cringe in retrospect but it was also in line with the lolsorandom humor that was popular at the time.

19

u/WhoPoopedMyPants420 14h ago

it seems to be a genuine thing poeple were saying

Okay but was the dynamic "haha this is so fun we're a big community with a secret phrase" or was the dynamic "oh man there's a tiny little crowd of weirdos trying to force this"?

16

u/Familiar_You_3009 13h ago

For a brief moment, so it seemed, it was the former. 

I may not be a reliable source though, because I was 12 at the time

18

u/WhoPoopedMyPants420 13h ago

Latter, I was there. It was popular among the sort of crowd that would go to the IRL meetups or whatever, a really really small minority of the most Redditor Redditors

7

u/Familiar_You_3009 13h ago

Shucks. This confirms what I feared: I was a dweeb

1

u/meatboysawakening 12h ago

Definitely the latter.

1

u/brainburger 8h ago

I've used it to introduce myself to a redditor I was meeting for reasons, and he replied correctly and both of us were joking.

13

u/nitid_name 14h ago

I went to a meet up in the early days. Can confirm, it was a lot of weird people and a few normal ones sprinkled throughout. Someone asked about my karma and I didn't know and they thought I was joking.

Can confirm, "Narwhal bacons at midnight" was said non-ironically by a few people when they came up to the group.

7

u/mightybuffalo 15h ago

When I first got on reddit bitd people were definitly saying this in the wild.

1

u/kakka_rot 10h ago

going by your account age I believe you, lol. I think 2011 was around the first time I ever heard of reddit, and didn't get into it until about 2015

1

u/mightybuffalo 8h ago

I remember it already being super cringe by the time i joined.

4

u/breadcodes 12h ago

Its how I learned about Reddit. Literally because some kid asked me in earnest.

I have to escape this hellhole eventually...

3

u/Acceptable_Finish403 11h ago

I've got full faith that by 2046 you'll be outta here.

2

u/SaturdayNightStroll 11h ago

And go where??

seriously, is there somewhere else??

5

u/marvinrabbit 12h ago

Do not cite the deep magic to me, witch. I was there when it was written.

33

u/the_kedart 14h ago

People 100% did use it back in the day. I personally had several interactions where people asked me it IRL lol

Things were different back then (circa 2009-2011). We can look back now and clearly identify the cringe, but everything we did back then was cringe. That's life. Also people are out here being like "yeah back then everyone on reddit was a basement dweller", which is ironic because that phrase was used for people to identify each other IRL (a place that is pretty distinct from mom's basement). It was cringe, but it was also cute and fun for its time.

14

u/terminbee 13h ago

Reddit was better when it was just basement dwellers. At the time, it felt like an incel club but comparatively, it was at least somewhat authentic. Now it's 75% chance you're talking to bots and the majority of posters are just bots pushing a narrative. Or it's OF bots posting to bot replies.

19

u/rogerstandingby 12h ago

Reddit is the place I talk to other trans people. Hundreds of tiny trans people, living in my phone.

11

u/DionysianRebel 12h ago

I think you may be the only person using Reddit 100% correctly

7

u/Notorious-ly 13h ago

The internet in general was better when it was for basement dwellers, the tech literate, etc. Everything started going to shit in the late '00s / early '10s when the internet became mainstream and was in everyone's pocket.

6

u/CommieDrifter 13h ago

why do people act like people genuinely thought it was cool? It was cringe on purpose, they just called it "irony" instead

3

u/the_kedart 13h ago

Mostly because in-your-face irony or edginess like that is also considered cringe. Being "cringe on purpose" is itself viewed as cringe.

I just don't think too hard about it and instead focus on the fun and friends I had back then.

26

u/santaland 15h ago

It was literally how I heard about Reddit. Someone said it to me on Omegel and I asked what it meant. 

12

u/milk-in-a-cup 15h ago

Omg I haven’t heard Omegle in so long… for me, a hundred years ago I saw someone on tumblr complaining about the “I like your shoelaces” thing, and one of the replies was “at least it’s not as bad as ‘the narwhal bacons at midnight’” which brought me here.

2

u/Silent-Victory-3861 12h ago

What does it mean 

6

u/SaturdayNightStroll 11h ago

Back when Reddit was fairly small and not even the biggest website of its kind (see Digg) people wanted a secret code phrase that would be gibberish to normies but could be used to identify other Redditors.

Reddit was a community for nerds.

2

u/brainburger 8h ago

The original comment with it was a joke on a late night post by a redditor waiting at an airport, wondering if any other redditors were there.

5

u/santaland 11h ago

It is just a gibberish secret code you would say it it meant to strangers "yes, I use reddit". Tumblr had a similar one where you would tell someone "I like your shoelaces" and if their response was "Thanks, I stole them from the president" it meant you used Tumblr.

It was mostly just a meme though and probably no one really said it in real life, but the vibe at the time was you didn't really talk about the social media platforms you used in real life or even outside of those platforms. It was idk kind of cringe to do so because the other person, most of the time, would go "what is that?" and then you would have to explain to them the concept of using Tumblr.

Bacon and Narwhals were both super meme'd things at the time, so it was just a gibberish phrase no human being would ever say unless they were incredibly online.

2

u/innerbootes 10h ago

Thanks for explaining why the Reddit app (called Narwhal) I use has an app icon called Midnight Bacon. I had always idly wondered about that.

11

u/LemurLord 14h ago

We actually did use it at a few reddit meetups (always "ironically"), as though you wouldn't naturally be able to pick out the redditors in a crowd in 2012

5

u/Notorious-ly 13h ago

Those old reddit meet up group pics were something else.

3

u/le-derpina-art 12h ago

i discovered that shit 5 years after it had lost popularity (the internet was balls deep into its MLG phase) and considering all the other shit i did at that age i'm glad unironically using that phrase in real life wasn't one of them

5

u/well-lighted 14h ago

Back when online communities weren't as widespread and mostly limited to basement-dwellers, they all had various shibboleths to identify fellow members IRL. I was active on Something Awful before Reddit and theirs was "Do you have stairs in your house?" Reddit's was obviously way cringier but I did in fact hear both used in earnest.

This was also when everyone who wasn't terminally online only knew Reddit as "that jailbait site" so it was always risky to out yourself as a user lol. I still avoid it even though there are a lot of normal people on here now and r_jb has been banned for a long time.

2

u/West_Walrus_3602 7h ago

I was a cringe middle schooler when the narwhal bacon shit was happening and I used Reddit for rage comics.

I remember saying that shit to one of my friends and it’s such a cringey memory this thread unlocked lol. People did actually used to say that shit as a coded message

1

u/AgentCirceLuna 14h ago

Brugh wtf… this comment is written like I was having a stroke.

21

u/WhoPoopedMyPants420 14h ago

I also choose this guy's cancer

10

u/Acceptable-Drive3781 12h ago

Ah, the ol' reddit canceroo. Hold my chemo, I'm going in!

20

u/Snazz55 14h ago

"you should play Tetris"

5

u/AbstinentNoMore 10h ago

I legit want to punch through the screen anybody who says this.

1

u/brandimariee6 13h ago

You just chose my game for me, gracias

47

u/Intrepid-While-7015 15h ago

Back in my 20s I worked at a gym. A dude there was squatting with really bad form, so I started talking to him so he didn't bust his knees. My mind is blanking right now, but he brought up a very popular book on the fitness sub at the time and I told him I knew about it from Reddit as well.

This kid thought it was a good idea to say "the narwhal bacons at midnight" in real life in response to me mentioning Reddit. I almost died from the cringe. Good for him for trying to get into shape at least.

15

u/chuhai-drinker 2h ago

(Warning: mildly NSFL details blacked out)

I will never forget this one Reddit post where someone told a very disturbing and traumatic story about a failed suicide attempt with a nail gun and some dipshit commented "looks like they didn't hit the nail on the head with that one" and any time I'm baffled by redditor behavior I just remember that comment and think "oh yeah, that's right, they're morons"

7

u/FearedDragon 1h ago

Have you heard the one about the post asking if you could have sex with anyone who would it be? Some dude responded with a long post about missing his wife who passed and just wanting that connection that he's been missing. Some guy responded "I also choose this guy's wife"

•

u/Sanspai56 12m ago

well that got a chuckle out of me

4

u/TheDuchyofWarsaw 12h ago

It's "Le narwhal bacons at midnight " my good sir

Tips fedora

3

u/Akussa 11h ago

I wonder if /u/FreakinWolfy regrets creating this phrase.

6

u/TalkOfSexualPleasure 14h ago

Do not cite the Deep Magic to me, Witch. I was there when it was written

1

u/AppropriateTouching 6h ago

Do you have stairs in your house.

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928

u/BertytheSnowman 17h ago

Ratio'd

182

u/capeslop 16h ago

The duality of man, encapsulated in 73 awards.

7

u/UnUsernameRandom 14h ago

It's because there are a lot of stories that are just karma farming. I don't care for strangers on the Internet enough, so these comments are just attention seeking.

1.0k

u/sreeko1 17h ago

Redditors trying to find the most depressing post/comment out there to give away their free wholesome award.

571

u/lucioux 17h ago

you won reddit with this comment😂

here, take my updoot, kind stranger.

Edit: okay wow i had no idea this was gonna blow up
Edit: oh my god mom i’m famous!
Edit: thanks for all the Edit:
Edit: Edit:

238

u/-Inca- 17h ago

This! So much this!

158

u/lyinggrump 16h ago edited 13h ago

Came here to say this

Edit: thanks for the award kind stranger nods respectfully in your direction

97

u/Relative-Village9801 16h ago

Beat me to it

69

u/bong_residue 15h ago

Beat meat to it

67

u/syrian_samuel 15h ago

happy cake day!

50

u/Jiquero 15h ago

A true Reddit moment.

13

u/LLNNGGSS 13h ago

Love it!

12

u/Certifiedumb-ass 7h ago

you, sir, have won the internet!

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10

u/thorinslefttit 15h ago

Happy cake day!

2

u/bong_residue 7h ago

Thank you!

8

u/Acceptable-Drive3781 11h ago

Made an account specifically to make this comment (account age: 4 years)

5

u/FriedEldenRings 11h ago

Edit: thanks for the award kid strangler! *tips fedora*

71

u/strider-rider-the2nd 16h ago

Here, have my poor man's gold 🥇

51

u/lucioux 16h ago

why thank you kind redditor🥹🥹

24

u/BigBootyBuff 15h ago

Damn those ninjas chopping onions 😭

30

u/MaNemsJef69 15h ago

Chungus 100 moment

18

u/thrashingkaiju 14h ago

2018 sure was a time.

11

u/DrDan21 15h ago

You <sir> are a gentlemen and a scholar

3

u/vektorog 12h ago

this made me spit out my coffee

3

u/Actual_Emu_168 15h ago

Happy cake day!

182

u/Vahgeo 10h ago

Damn how old is thie screenshot? Remember when we had awards, then lost them, then got worse looking awards after that?

90

u/Cypresss09 10h ago

Remember when awards used to grant you premium (or whatever it was called) for a period of time?

64

u/iamredsmurf 9h ago

There was the lounge where all the elite could go sniff each other's farts. 

17

u/KingHunter150 6h ago

Yes, I got access to that subreddit after getting some premium award, and well, it was pretty lame. I thought i finally entered the Mason's Lodge of Reddit. Turned out fart sniffing would probably be more exciting.

8

u/MrDanMaster 5h ago

That’s the truth for a lot of this stuff irl

3

u/GoreyGopnik 2h ago

The mason's lodge is also just people sniffing each other's farts by the way

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u/Cypresss09 7h ago

Oh shit I forgot about the lounge

1

u/Meta_Man_X 4h ago

If you got guilded in megalounge you ascended up another tier. I’m like 3 layers deep lol

12

u/X_crafter 9h ago

now we get money, 🤑🤑(a billionth of a cent)

4

u/UpvoteCircleJerk 9h ago

now we got cattle brands of shame

Top 1% ball gargler

2

u/Substantial_Bake_728 7h ago

I remember when Reddit wasn't a dumpster fire. But honestly that was a long ass time ago.

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u/LyndisLegion2 15h ago

Reminds me of that other screenshot where a person talks about a person that was very close to them committing suicide or dying another way, and some dude replies with: "It's just like that anime I watched!"

31

u/mellifluous_cornmeal 14h ago

“What a weird and insensitive thing to say about my nephews death”

151

u/Tanto_Gusto 17h ago

Play tetris

91

u/TrasseTheTarrasque 16h ago

Might help with the trauma, but being found playing Tetris while covered in your boyfriend's blood is not going to play well in front of a jury.

12

u/_Solani_ 14h ago

Obviously they meant clean the blood up first, otherwise you'll get it all over the controller. 🤷‍♀️

1

u/UnknownGamer014 13h ago

Now I am curious if water proof devices can work submerged in blood or not

3

u/ShibaLover227 12h ago

Well, sure. But with practice you get used to playing in front of a crowd

98

u/runcertain 16h ago

Tried this recently after trauma. Downloaded Tetris, played one level, got hit with an ad for some kind of royal candy crush clone, couldn’t exit out of the ad, decided I preferred the trauma.

11

u/famijoku 16h ago

tetriscom.sixwi.de (no ads)

18

u/cupcayuk 11h ago

tetirs.exe (360p) [Punjabi] [camrip] [ENGSub]

3

u/Sidnev 13h ago

no idea what you downloaded but just get tetris effect connected or try out nestris.org if you dont wanna spend money

3

u/MysticDragon14 15h ago

That's when you get a Gameboy

2

u/Blackstab1337 14h ago

play tetrio instead

2

u/AdreKiseque 14h ago

The current Tetris app is so ass lol

18

u/xSPYXEx 15h ago

The Tetris posters are going to drive me to something drastic and irreversible.

11

u/Tanto_Gusto 14h ago

Play more tetris

5

u/cantadmittoposting 13h ago

It's supposed to be Get Trauma -> Tetris, not Tetris -> Cause Trauma.

3

u/iltopop 10h ago

"That's why when I'm driving I always play tetris at the same time so if I hit anyone I'm totally psychologically covered." - Streamer who I think is named "Rickypeacock" but please correct me if I'm wrong, I only know him from when he plays Jackbox with Northernlion :P

48

u/ShamusLovesYou 15h ago

"WOAH THIS IS MY CHANCE TO DO THE 'Did he drop any good loot?' JOKE!"

36

u/Prior-Paint-7842 17h ago

Atleast they didnt do it on your birthday

70

u/digitalmofo 13h ago

Ironically, my girlfriend's ex broke into her apartment, sat with her holding a gun for hours, told her all about how unstable he was then killed himself in front of her on her birthday.

38

u/TotallyBrandNewName 11h ago

Happy cakeday?

23

u/DustPuzzled414 12h ago

happy cake day!

21

u/MsSelphine 11h ago

JFC that is one hell of a lot of trauma. At least he's dead? I guess?

4

u/yugedowner 7h ago

How the fuck did you come to that conclusion

11

u/MsSelphine 6h ago

Well I mean the guy was a stalker 

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358

u/zorrez 17h ago

Peak reddit autism

96

u/coolmanjack 13h ago

Is it autism or is it just a person trying to be a bit dark. Along the same vein as "I also choose this guy's dead wife". I see no reason to think that the person replying wasn't aware of how anachronistic/inappropriate their comment was

40

u/fatalityfun 12h ago

100% was intentional, normally people would throw that in at the end of a “wow how horrible” paragraph

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u/dvzn 17h ago

redditism

2

u/1-800GODDAMMIT 11h ago

Maybe it is karma bot?

25

u/Lem0n_Lem0n 16h ago

Similar to the guy who chose another man's wife.. I guess

26

u/Tsmart 14h ago

happy cake day!

18

u/user5555555555555559 14h ago

Happy cake day!

4

u/BothAbbreviations641 14h ago

Happy non cake day

4

u/Dooty_Shirker 10h ago

Happy cake day!

3

u/Tsmart 10h ago

happy cake day!

1

u/Ultimate_Sigma_Boy67 10h ago

khabby kek dai

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u/BonJovicus 9h ago

Honestly I don’t know who is more in the wrong here. 

The second commenter could be considered insensitive, but posting anything on Reddit and expecting only serious responses is madness. “I also choose this dead guys wife.”

10

u/vampychomp 14h ago

Haiku bot enters chat

5

u/RuckFeddi7 12h ago

this is straight outta from the movie "Smile"

1

u/ListerineAfterOral 10h ago

Movie was nightmare fuel

18

u/Tsmart 14h ago

My boyfriend in college committed suicide right in front of me, to this day by far the most traumatic thing to happen to me. Can still remember sitting there covered in his blood just not being able to process what just happened.

27

u/LooksLikeAWookie 14h ago

Happy cake day!

10

u/Common-Astronaut5916 14h ago

Happy cake day!

3

u/bblover239 13h ago

Happy cake day!

7

u/mjd 13h ago

I also choose this girl's dead boyfriend

3

u/DeliciousPoetryMan 6h ago

Cake daaaaay! 

2

u/Shot-Arugula8264 14h ago

“No Becky, I actually don’t have to go to your sorority’s stupid formal.”

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3

u/keithstonee 6h ago

if thats the thread im thinking of i said my dad told me to kill myself and got down voted lmfao

2

u/anteria_ 13h ago

I have never seen this image in such good quality

2

u/MrBlueSky-ToldYouWhy 12h ago

Let's play 8-ball!

2

u/No-Store-3191 12h ago

And then my feed gave me this gem

2

u/scrumple_my_scrongle 6h ago

So many updoots

3

u/Davi_illus 13h ago

Sorry but this remembers too much that scene from evangelion when kaworu explodes in front of shinji 😭

Shit that must've been horrible tho

4

u/Omega-A 15h ago

That’s just a bot

13

u/Elite_AI 14h ago

No, it's someone with absolutely no social skills who's learned that if you say happy cake day you get upvoted

20

u/madam_zeroni 14h ago

Probably someone being purposefully absurd because they think it’s funny

3

u/yungScooter30 11h ago

To be fair, half the stories (or more) on this site are probably fake. In a vacuum, this is hilarious

3

u/PlingPlongDingDong 14h ago

the trauma dumper is the bot

6

u/GeForce-meow 15h ago

It happened really long ago, i once went to hunt this specific comment and it was deleted alongside the Happy cake day comment. I doubt it was bot

1

u/Flapper_Jr 15h ago

woah me too

1

u/Proper_Door_4124 12h ago

"I too choose this guy's boyfriend"

1

u/lfohnoudidnt 11h ago

That's the day she deleted her reddit account.

1

u/frisco-frisky-dom 11h ago

I was reading the post that OP wrote and wondering why this was under "comedy heaven", till the saw the "happy cake day". Laughed a bit harder than I shudve 😄 😄

1

u/fuzzybasketball 11h ago

that's just /oldpeoplereddit

1

u/Kylearean 9h ago

back when awards were free

1

u/Some-Turnover6941 8h ago

Sorry I just scrolled past a /hatethissmug post about this same thing with the same image lmao

1

u/DraconixDG 5h ago

I miss the old awards from reddit, it just felt different and more interesting back then.

Made them feel more meaningful

1

u/dominantfrog 1h ago

what a piece of shit

1

u/Bofinqen 33m ago

”I also choose this guy’s dead wife” energy

1

u/Bofinqen 31m ago

Same energy