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Avengers Infinity War

The Internet Came Up With A Meme About The Ending Of Infinity War That Doesn’t Actually Spoil It

Of course, we’re going to talk about why it works so well, so there are spoilers in this post. (Come on, you’ve had a full week to see it.)

Do you really need a spoiler warning? Here’s one anyway!

Now that Avengers: Infinity War’s been out for over a week – including the biggest opening weekend of all time – we can all share in the emotional devastation of that ending together.

And how does the Internet share things? By making memes. And the Infinity War meme of choice is truly brilliant: visually arresting, funny, and with an edge of Too Soon.

Thanks to the Photoshop disintegration effect, you can experience all your favourite characters dissolving into thin air, just like half the Avengers did at the snap of Thanos’ fingers.

Many come complete with the line that showed we were going to have to sit through a traumatic scene of little Peter Parker dying in Tony Stark’s arms. (Which, by the way, it turns out Tom Holland ad-libbed.)

And of course, we’re well into the second wave of this meme, so there are meta-memes and meme sandwiches and memed hams.

The beauty of I Don’t Feel So Good is that it doesn’t spoil the movie at all.

Even if it’s somehow labelled as being related to Infinity War, a picture of a character with the disintegration effect doesn’t tell you anything out of context.

Now whether the effect itself in the movie makes any sense – that’s another story.

Wasn’t Thanos’ whole point that with the fully powered Gauntlet, he could snap his fingers and 50% of the universe’s population would blink out of existence in an instant?

The disintegrations in the film aren’t instant. It’s slow – it takes Peter several dramatic moments, long enough for him to dissolve in Stark’s arms – and often in full view of others (except poor Sam, hidden in the grass).

In the 1991 comic, when Thanos snaps his Gauntleted fingers, Spider-Man watches half the people in Times Square simply vanish (and also stays alive, you monsters).

Wong seems to feel a hint of something amiss before disappearing, and others who vanish (including Hawkeye… hmmm) in front of Captain America look to be in pain or distress for a few moments – but there’s no disintegration at all. They just fade out of reality.

The terror and not-so-goodness Peter feels in the film is the opposite of what Thanos says happens – it’s not instant. Even if Quill, Strange and Peter’s disappearances on Titan are happening simultaneously with the others’ in Wakanda, the whole thing seems to take maybe a full minute, rather than an instant.

But why be consistent when you could be emotionally manipulative instead? Watching beloved characters flake away into thin air piece by piece wasn’t just devastating – it was instantly iconic.

That’s why the meme works – because those who have seen the film instantly understand the reference, and those who haven’t, don’t. Even if you’re expecting major character deaths and know that a few major characters don’t make it, the oddly gentle visual effect, repeated over and over while you dread your favourite’s fate, is something you don’t see coming.