“Pablo Escobar meme,” despite sounding like a truncated mad libs entry, has become a staple among emotive image memes on the internet. When you need a meme to express sadness and/or boredom, the Colombian drug lord will be there for you. But don’t worry, it’s not the real Escobar—this one comes right off the television. Let’s back things up.
Origin and spread of the Pablo Escobar meme
The first two seasons of the Netflix series Narcos followed the life of Escobar (played by Wagner Moura) as he ruled his empire. Although the accuracy of the show was debated by the drug lord’s real life son, it was a hit for the streamer—and the origin of this particular meme.
Several images of Escobar staring blankly ahead were uploaded to Meme Generator in October 2016, following the release of season two. These collectively became known as the “Pablo Escobar waiting” or “sad Pablo Escobar” meme.
Pablo Escobar Waiting [2880×2835]
byu/seaque42 inMemeRestoration
This particular meme got a lot of love from reddit, gaining traction in various subreddits over the subsequent years. It was primarily used with all three images combined, although occasionally one—usually the image of Escobar sitting outdoors—is used by itself.
How the Pablo Escobar meme is used
The Pablo Escobar meme is ultimately a fairly basic, albeit versatile, emotive meme, thanks to the drug lord’s blank expression.
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byu/Party-Category8988 from discussion
innarcos
The images are often deployed to express the bleary exhaustion of a long wait, one that you feel may never come to an end. In other instances, they are used to share a bone deep kind of sadness or isolation. Of course, it’s the internet, so the meme is just as (if not more) likely to be used in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way as it is to be taken with full sincerity.
Remixes of the meme
Once the images of Pablo Escobar waiting had secured their place in meme history, the remixes started popping up. Users recreated the trifecta of poses in video games, or even just photoshopped the originals to put their own spin on things.
Tried to recreate the pablo escobar meme
byu/AntaresTheGodsEater inMonsterHunterWorld
Waiting for Hitman 2… (remake of pablo escobar meme)
byu/TheLinden inHiTMAN
My wife sent me this 😔
by inVisionPro
And while the Pablo Escobar meme doesn’t translate particularly well to TikTok, considering it’s a series of static images, that hasn’t stopped some users from making the leap anyway.
@candycartel.store Escobar waited 5 years you can wait a day👀🍭 #candycartel #halalcandy #fyp ♬ Monkeys Spinning Monkeys – Kevin MacLeod & Kevin The Monkey
@dpn259 Waiting for follows like….. #funny #likes #follows #growth #trending #foryou #fypシ #fyp #lonely #pablo #waiting ♬ I Will Be Right Here Waiting for You – Steve Pais
One of the greatest things about this particular meme is that it doesn’t require any knowledge of Escobar or Narcos for people to understand what it’s trying to convey. And it’s probably for that reason these images will continue to circulate as an easy way for folks to share their feelings with a bunch of strangers on the internet.
Related memes:
- The many faces of tears: A deep dive into iconic crying memes
- All in on the Nothing Ever Happens meme
- The man, the meme, the legend: a history of Nicolas Cage memes
- ‘No one is going to notice’: Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh’s new movie gets memed—because of a carousel horse
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