“Bizarre flex however OK.” “What are these?!” “Woman dinner.” Of the numerous memes that flood the web on daily basis, a choose few transcend the keyboard and enter frequent vernacular. Even earlier than meme tradition crystallized, popular culture has given rise to sure phrases that develop legs and tackle a lifetime of their very own. And no doubt, one of the crucial iconic is “maintain my beer.”
Mostly, it’s uttered earlier than trying one thing harmful or reckless, however it could actually additionally function a setup for one-upping somebody or performing a heroic act with relative ease. Whether or not the stunt is wildly idiotic or spectacular, “maintain my beer” at all times carries an air of humor. However the place did the phrase come from and when did it change into a typical expression?
Although “maintain my beer” was seemingly first stated in a pub someplace lots of of years in the past, many level to a 1959 Warner Brothers cartoon, “Wild & Wolly Hare,” as the primary use of the phrase in one thing just like its trendy type. Within the decidedly dated clip, a braggadocious gunslinger hears that “Yosemite Sam swings the quickest gun west of the Pecos” in a saloon, and walks out to problem him to a duel. However first, he fingers his beer to a close-by cowboy, saying, “Right here, maintain ‘em beer,” earlier than waltzing out — solely to be promptly was Swiss cheese. Admittedly, “maintain ‘em beer” isn’t fairly the identical as “maintain my beer,” however the clip planted a seed that will take root many years later.
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A number of sources credit score comic Jeff Foxworthy with bringing the phrase into the limelight within the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Round that point, he started performing his now-famous “You May Be a Redneck If…” routine, with redneck tradition changing into a core a part of his act and comedic id. A lot of these jokes made it into his 1996 ebook “No Shirt, No Sneakers….No Downside!” On one web page, he writes: “What are a Redneck’s well-known final phrases? Easy. ‘Y’all watch this!’”
Nonetheless, Foxworthy by no means truly stated “maintain my beer.” In response to The Wall Road Journal, “a number of years later, these ‘well-known final phrases’ had morphed in some tellings to ‘Maintain my beer and watch this!’” Precisely how that shift occurred — or who was accountable — stays unclear. However by then, the phrase had begun popping up all over the place. In 1999, the road made its first look in print as a joke within the ebook “E-humor: An Anthology of Jokes from the Finish of the Twentieth Century.”
By the mid-aughts, the web was blossoming (for higher and worse), YouTube had entered the image, and meme tradition was beginning to take form. “Maintain my beer” was alongside for the journey. In response to the open-source web site “Know Your Meme,” the phrase turned intently related to “fail movies” within the late aughts and early 2010s. Reddit and YouTube customers would publish movies of stunts gone incorrect, usually titling them with the abbreviation “HMB.”
Since then, the phrase has ebbed and flowed in reputation. A wave of “maintain my beer” memes took off on X (previously Twitter) after the 2016 election, and once more in April 2017 throughout every week of high-profile PR blunders by main companies.
Whereas it might not be at peak reputation anymore, the phrase has circulated extensively sufficient to change into a bona fide staple of each web tradition and on a regular basis language. Hell, the r/holdmybeer subreddit sees new posts virtually every day, and tabloids nonetheless use the expression to beef up their headlines. Not all phrases — no matter how intelligent they’re — stand the check of time. However “maintain my beer” has clearly struck a generational chord, and odds are it would proceed to take action.
