About

"You Gonna Get Raped" (also known by the acronym "YGGR") is a catchphrase and image macro used to convey creepiness or intimidation, albeit in a playful manner. The image macro series usually depicts a threatening glance or an intense stare directed either towards someone else in the pic or through the fourth wall, leaving the viewers with a strange sense of vulnerability. In some instances, the catchphrase can be used to indicate the imminent pwnage one is about to receive.

Origin

In 1993 a photographer named Matt Kenlon was sent to cover the Mississippi River Flooding.

In November 1994 the photographer met a homeless man named William Todd in the town of Biloxi, Mississippi. Kenlon asked Todd if he could take some photos… the results:





The photos were published in a coffee table book produced by McLaren Press in 1996 called "America's Refuse: Homeless in the Heartland."

In 2001, the Something Awful forums began hosting a scanned version of one of the photos -- the one with the fierce, vaguely threatening stare, glowering through that intimidating hood:

The words "You gonna get raped" were written on it. From this point onward, the man would become known as the "You're Gonna Get Raped Guy".

Fallout & Followup

This less-than-classy internet meme did not go over well for William Todd, the subject of the original photograph. According to a morrissey-solo.com forum user named snowfallsoon:

[…]

That whole thing started at somethingawful.com…i forget exactly how but there was a thread that turned into something like 'music to get raped by'- a photoshopped CD cover has Todd's face on it. Todd was fired from his job and could not find another job for 6 months. He has been clean for 14 years and now works for a contractor rebuilding buildings in Biloxi.

Discussions on the SomethingAwful archives can not currently be found but a picture that resembles the description is used in the Encyclopedia Dramatica article about "rape" [Very NSFW content there] :

A more detailed explanation of William Todd's life (he has also been hit by 2005 hurricane Katrina) and how the pictures spread can be found in a 2006 LiveJournal article.

Someone had scanned the picture of Todd from America's Refuse and placed it online as a sort of punchline. Julius wasn't the first Biloxi native to notice. The picture was forwarded to inboxes across town. Todd was, by then, a supervisor at the newspaper. At his next employee review, the picture surfaced. He didn't know what to say. He was let go. William was jobless for six months after that. That picture got featured on Fark.com, then it was all over Internet.

While, at first, the meme could be seen as racist, focusing mainly on black people's pictures, as one goes along, the catchphrase was used in any situation or picture in which someone got the same kind of stare.

YTMND

In 2004 YGGR meme reached YTMND -- http://yougonnagetrapedson.ytmnd.com/ by user eggyolk was the first site, created in May 2004. To date it has gathered about 2,400 views.

eggyolk's site led to an impressively prolific bunch of 71 variations on the fad, the most popular being http://rapedzelda.ytmnd.com/ (warning: flashy animation) by user j3pro on the 8th of October 2005, gathering more than 29,500 views.

Insight

Know Your Meme Store

Elsewhere

By 2006, the meme got its own Urban Dictionary entry.

By 2008, it got its own single-serving website.

Finally, you can see there a great collection of Youtube videos using the meme's running joke.