Homer's iconic work The Odyssey has inspired countless classic stories and pieces of art, and now, it's inspired the viral "Not What I'm Called" meme.

The exploitable meme format, which sees a character pointing at someone or something and misnaming it in a funny way, first appeared on Tumblr back in 2024 and has been slowly growing over the course of 2025.

So what exactly is the context of the meme, how is it used, and where did it come from? Here's what you need to know.

What Is The 'Not What I'm Called' Meme?

The "Not What I'm Called" meme was created by Tumblr user possessable back on June 7th, 2024. The original version of the meme shows two characters staring down the cyclops Polyphemus from Homer's The Odyssey.

One of the characters is seen pointing at the cyclops and mistakenly calling him, "Polyamorous," to which he responds, "Not what I'm called."

The post went on to gain over 85,000 notes in just under a year and gave a lot of viewers ideas for their own versions of the meme.

Four months later, in October 2024, a version of the meme that replaces the cyclops with a Polybius arcade machine went viral on X, sparking a wave of similar memes over the following months.

How Is 'Not What I'm Called' Used In Memes?

The "Not What I'm Called" meme steadily grew in virality between October 2024 and May 2025, resulting in a lot of popular new examples of the format.

Some of the most viral of these have the subject misnaming something that might sound similar to "polyamorous," but other versions take the meme to the next level and use subjects that could be mistaken for other words.

One example is a version of the meme in which the character points at the character Amy Rose from Sonic the Hedgehog and calls her "Aromantic."

Another has the character misnaming the Fire Emblem character Ratatoskr as simply "Ratatouille."

There are a lot of different ways the meme can be interpreted and played with, and the creativity of the memes is only getting better as the format continues to go viral.

What Are Some More 'Not What I'm Called' Memes?

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For the full history of Not What I'm Called, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information.