About
Nice MayMay Man, also known as “Le Nice New MayMay,” is an exploitable character art illustration of a man looking to the side with a mouth agape. The character is named after a common mispronunciation of the word “meme” and is used within the /r/circlejerk subreddit to mock Internet meme clichés.
Origin
On February 27th, 2014, Redditor xvvhiteboy submitted a post titled “Le New Meme: Nice MayMay Man” to the /r/circlejerk[1] subreddit, featuring an illustration of man’s face in front of a yellow and blue color wheel background with the caption “Is maymay / and man” (shown below). In the first four days, the post gained over 3,500 up votes and 180 comments.
Spread
On February 28th, Reddit rehpotsirhc123 submitted an animated GIF titled “MayMay Intensifies” featuring a man tipping a fedora with Nice MayMay Man’s face superimposed to /r/circlejerk[5] (shown below, left). On March 1st, Redditor Literal_Mitteral submitted a version of the Nice MayMay illustration edited with long hair and eyelashes with a title referencing the “strong black woman who don’t need no man” copypasta to /r/circlejerk[6] (shown below, right).
The same day, the Tumblr blog So Brave[3] published an article introducing the satirical altcoin “LeNewMemeNiceMayMayManCoin” as a “cryptocurrency developed entirely by /r/circlejerk.”
On March 2nd, Redditor Eman9871 submitted a post asking for the origin of Nice MayMay Man to the /r/OutOfTheLoop[2] subreddit, to which Redditor Buckfost replied that it is used to satirize the “overuse of memes on Reddit.” By March 4th, there were over 250 search results within /r/circlejerk for the keyword “maymay
