After roasting video game legend Hideo Kojima, indie author John A. Douglas had his own fantasy writing torn to shreds across social media.
Although it started as a dunk on Metal Gear’s villain names, the Orc City meme quickly became a viral joke about overwrought fantasy writing. Folks on X latched onto the dramatic, self-serious tone of Douglas’s book, The Black Crown, and turned it into an ironic, remixable meme.
Meme basics
- Meme/trend creator: @capybaroness on X
- Meme type: Text meme, reaction meme, meme edit
- First appearance: July 3, 2025
- Origin source: John A. Douglas’s self-published novel The Black Crown
- Used to convey: Mocking stereotypical tropes and overly serious worldbuilding
- Peak popularity: July 3–6, 2025
What does "Orc City" come from?
In its original form, The Black Crown by John A. Douglas describes a grim fantasy setting. In the opening scene of his self-published novel, the author wrote, "The Orc city smoldered, burned down in the wake of battle. The ground soaked in a knuckle's depth of blood and ash. The savage cries of its defenders now silent and still as its ruin was overseen by the architects of its very destruction. The Orc Wars were finally over. 'There is nothing more reviled than the Orc,' said the elvish king."
People began using it to mock the genre’s obsession with orcs, elves, and grand destinies. Whether ironic or sincere, any post referencing war, destruction, or revenge could be spun into a joke about living in Orc City.
How it started: indie author John A. Douglas's misguided Hideo Kojima diss
The origin of this new meme trend began with John A. Douglas criticizing Hideo Kojima's supposed "lazy" naming of Metal Gear Solid 2's villain, Fat Man. In his July 3, 2025, tweet, Douglas wrote, "Whenever someone glazes Hideo Kojima, remember he once made a boss character that’s a larda** in a bomb disposal suit riding around on rollerblades and sipping wine from a wine glass with a straw."
People took notice, but it wasn't until @capybaroness quote-retweeted Douglas with a "This you?"-style own that the meme ball started rolling. They shared a passage from the indie author's book, The Black Crown, and commented, "this is how this guy's book starts."
Douglas's criticism backfired, and @capybaroness's post blew up, with over 15.4 million views and over 6.1K retweets and quote retweets. People started criticizing Douglas's writing, calling it stereotypical and trite fantasy content. One person found the book's glossary, which was filled with slurs and racist epithets about the various races in the book, such as Orcpunched and Spear ear.
Popularity/virality
The Orc City meme trend hit its stride over the Fourth of July weekend. As more users chimed in, the jokes grew more absurd.
By July 4, the meme had splintered into endless parody formats. @NewEngOfficial posted an Anthony Bourdain meme image with the text overlay, "Once you’ve been to Orc City, you'll never stop wanting to beat the Elvish King to death with your bare hands."
On July 5, @hedgebrush posted: "John Elf Kennedy shot in Dal'ath after promising to declassify documents on the Orc Wars" with a photo of JFK edited to sport elf ears.
Although the meme was lighthearted, it also highlighted how fantasy writing can fall into familiar, tired patterns. Critics used the moment to point out how many modern fantasy authors still rely on Tolkien- and Dungeons & Dragons-inspired tropes like noble elves and violent orcs.
"Why is it always orcs and elves?" one user wrote on X, echoing a sentiment many fans have shared for years. Even casual readers began to question whether fantasy still needed the same old conflicts dressed up in new words.
Some of the best Orc City memes:
There is no set meme format for the Orc City meme, which lends itself well to being reinterpreted as anything from a badly photoshopped screencap edit to a dramatically written piece of text "from" a book about Orc City.
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