Where Did The 'We Will Rebuild' Lawn Chair Meme Come From? Jokes Inspired By Underwhelming Natural Disasters Explained

A photo of a tipped-over white lawn chair makes the rounds online almost every time an underwhelming or overdramatized natural disaster strikes, particularly in the U.S., and for good reason — it’s the perfect visual punchline.

While the image macro meme itself is pretty innocuous, it has evolved into a running gag that pokes fun at overhyped weather events or disasters that fail to live up to the media frenzy surrounding them.

But where did this image originate, and how did a single fallen chair become the internet’s go-to symbol of anticlimactic chaos? Here's a brief history of the We Will Rebuild meme.

Where Did The Image Of The Fallen Lawn Chair Come From?

Canada was hit with a 5.0 magnitude earthquake back on June 23rd, 2010, mostly affecting residents in Ontario and Quebec. After the quake, some locals logged onto one of the internet's longest-standing photo-sharing sites to talk about the novel experience: Flickr.

In a thread titled, "How does one photograph an earthquake," Flickr user @kastytis jokingly shared a photo they claimed to have received from their friend, one that truly shows the magnitude of damage ravaged on Canada by the earthquake — a single, tipped-over lawn chair.

The tongue-in-cheek caption and the image’s absurdity quickly resonated online, transforming the fallen chair into a symbol of anticlimactic disasters and sparking its rise as a recurring internet meme.

How Did The Image Of The Fallen Lawn Chair Turn Into The 'We Will Rebuild' Meme?

The image of the fallen lawn chair became synonymous with the "We Will Rebuild" meme after the 2011 Virginia Earthquake, which measured at a 5.9 on the Richter scale and mainly affected Charlottesville and Richmond.

Jokes promising Virginians that "We Will Rebuild" began making the rounds soon after, with the earliest known instance of the meme in its current form being posted to FunnyJunk on August 23rd, 2011.

Also on August 23rd, Redditor uncouthsilence5 submitted a post titled "Never Forget" to the subreddit /r/pics, featuring an image macro of a majestic bald eagle superimposed over the fallen lawn chair with the caption, "8/23/2011 Never Forget."

What Are Some Variations Of The 'We Will Rebuild' Meme?

The catchphrase "We Will Rebuild" continued to trend alongside innocuous images of minimal damage every time a region was hit by an underwhelming natural disaster, as seen in jokes that followed Hurricane Irene and the Seddon Earthquake.

What Are Some More 'We Will Rebuild' Memes?

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For the full history of We Will Rebuild, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information.