Nine hours ago, Phil Braun tweeted an image of an eight-month-old tweet from internet personality Steven Crowder. In that time, hundreds of people have turned the source into a punchline. These are the precious and almost clockwork early stages in the birth of a meme.

"This is the ideal make body," says the tweet, "You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like." Attached is an image of a man who appears to be mixed martial artist Fedor Emelianenko, standing uncomfortably in a photograph that channels the grime oeuvre of Terry Richardson.

This is the ideal make body. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like. pic.twitter.com/6M8Y63QNI7 — Steven Crowder (@scrowder) January 13, 2016

And thus begins the memetic equivalent of a top 40 radio station.

Harambe:

This is the ideal make body. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like. pic.twitter.com/7WRMVQumsa — woke jorts dad (@kvltvonnegut) August 16, 2016

Smooth:

This is the ideal make body. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like. pic.twitter.com/WGsOS563E6 — Kate Schroeder (@kbschroedy) August 16, 2016

Guy Fieri:

@D2_Derpinator This is the ideal make body. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like. pic.twitter.com/CDnlvyMVZb — \_('~')_/ (@w41t3r) August 16, 2016

Within four tweets from the source, Shrek appeared:

This is the ideal make body. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like. pic.twitter.com/DAYJ7RWBy7 — Dollars Horton (@crushingbort) August 16, 2016

Within the first 20, we saw Waluigi:

This is the ideal make body. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like. pic.twitter.com/Lenbyt46dc — 9 V O L T (@9_volt88) August 16, 2016

In the first 50 replies, that creepy car crash body appears three times:

This is the ideal make body. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like. pic.twitter.com/01WobGzpJk — Comrade Omega (@Omegatheroyal) August 16, 2016

This is how the meme sausage is made, every member of the meme space taking its turn merging with the newcomer in attempts to achieve a more powerful, hybrid form. And eventually, that form is found:

RT @scrowder This is the ideal make body. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like. pic.twitter.com/jm72Pb7PbU — Will (@IAmWillMarsh) August 16, 2016

Correction: The post originally attributed today's earliest retweet of Steven Crowder to Sunni LaBeouf. Phil Braun shared the Crowder message hours before LaBeouf. The post has been updated to reflect this information.