Sometimes it takes a little while for a meme to really find its footing. Such is the case with the American Chopper meme, which is catching on five years after the “soap opera for men” was cancelled. The likely cause for its recent popularity is Discovery Channel’s announcement that the reality series will be returning with new episodes starting this May 28th.
The original American Chopper ran for more than 200 episodes, but the most memorable moment came in 2009 when Paul Teutul, Sr. and Paul Teutul, Jr. engaged in one of their most heated of their many fights:
Reality TV peaked with American Chopper and nobody can convince me otherwise.
— Randy Plavajka (@randymatthw) March 25, 2018
Twitter users have been recently captioning five screencaps of the fight and imagining what else the father and son could be discussing. The earliest example was kicking around for years before being used as an inspiration for the new ones:
https://twitter.com/masoncarlton/status/970392929981337600
People like to imagine the father and son arguing about movies:
https://twitter.com/floozyesq/status/979133481698643973
https://twitter.com/superdeluxe/status/978741926026297347/photo/1
Or about Garfield being ungrateful. Jon Arbuckle is a decent man just trying to do his best!
https://twitter.com/GarfieldFanArt/status/976884083933499398
The arguing continued, touching on topics of history, TV, and comedy these days:
this is me and @empirewaist pic.twitter.com/TB9YaYa1SN
— emily (@gorgeoushag) April 3, 2018
https://twitter.com/SecretMovesMMA/status/979390227461693443
A treat for for the presumably enormous crossover audience of American Chopper and #TwinPeaks pic.twitter.com/uedtMb7eFg
— Chad (not parody) (@chaadpro) March 31, 2018
https://twitter.com/_ericcurtin/status/978880801013207040
Some Twitter users went to political and philosophical places:
https://twitter.com/SlayerRules_420/status/978875041780781056/photo/1
https://twitter.com/ne0liberal/status/978965084348313603
https://twitter.com/trgrrl/status/977247125053628416
Some people thought it was good for the discourse:
https://twitter.com/30_Helens/status/981010029208678401
can only understand discourse thru american chopper memes now
— ┬┴┬┴┤◕_◕) (@malteserubble) March 30, 2018
Others just wanted to argue about Star Wars:
https://twitter.com/prequelmemes1/status/978574106877607936
https://twitter.com/floozyesq/status/979133481698643973
And sometimes the jokes went a little meta:
https://twitter.com/_ericcurtin/status/978400770130194432
https://twitter.com/kamilumin/status/980955776993910784
https://twitter.com/pattymo/status/979527666935222272
(Hat tip and a thrown chair to Pleated Jeans, Buzzfeed, and Mashable)