A FAMILIAR MEME. A NEW CONTEXT.
“Cooman is the number one carry” is a 2019 copypasta about Winstrike's Cooman that blew up after Winstrike beat Na`Vi in a minor qualifier.
Add your captionThe editor opens with this picture. You can download the finished meme as a PNG.
Zaur “Cooman” Shakhmurzaev joined Winstrike Team on May 15, 2019, as Cyber.Sports.ru reported. Barely a week later, his name was at the center of the month's biggest meme.
Sources describe his role differently: the copypasta calls him a carry, Cybersport.ru calls him a “former Winstrike carry,” and a sports.ru interview from June 11, 2019, introduces him as Winstrike's midlaner.
The copypasta opens: “Well, Cooman right now is simply unrivaled in the CIS and Europe. The number one carry guy.” It goes on listing the player's virtues in the same tone and, among other things, mentions that he plays on the same team as Lil.
The original source isn't known for sure, and sources disagree. Cyber.Sports.ru, in a May 23, 2019, article, writes that the copypasta appeared after one of Cooman's streams where he poked fun at himself, and that it “most likely” originated in Twitch chat or a fan Discord. Cybersport.ru puts it differently: the copypasta appeared on Cooman's stream.
Commenters under the Cyber.Sports.ru article claimed it was written by a viewer in another streamer's chat, but there's no confirmation of that.
The explosion came on May 22, 2019, when Winstrike beat Na`Vi in a minor qualifier. People spammed the copypasta in comments, and the next day Cyber.Sports.ru put it in a headline: “‘The number one carry guy.’ The Cooman copypasta is the meme of the month.”
Cooman himself used the copypasta in his chat and declined to comment to Cyber.Sports.ru. According to the outlet, Fng agreed with it on stream, and Winstrike posted about it in its official community. Viewers “apologized” under Mrs. Marple's interview with Cooman, according to Cybersport.ru even for blinking while watching.
According to Cybersport.ru, in 2019 the copypasta came up in almost every match Cooman played, with every creep he last-hit setting off a wave of copy-pasting, and it spread across Twitter and other social networks very quickly.
The copypasta was translated into English, Spanish, Japanese, Chechen, and Ukrainian, as sports.ru reported, and Cybersport.ru also mentioned a Chinese version. People remixed it for other esports players, dropping a new name into the familiar structure.
At year's end, Cybersport.ru ranked the meme second in its top 10 memes of 2019. The top spot in that ranking went to the Dead Inside meme. Today the copypasta is used ironically, to heap over-the-top praise on any player.
Spin-off texts followed the original: Cyber.Sports.ru mentions two more copypastas, one about a typical Cooman fan and one with Lil's words about him.
The catalog image shows a young man in black clothes standing on the shoulder of a road next to a black car, with a rocky slope behind him. According to the source's caption, it's Cooman.
The copypasta's structure takes any name and any achievement. These examples are made up for illustration:
“Well, Dave right now is simply unrivaled in our office. The number one printer-fixing guy.” “Our support this patch is the number one guy, no contest.” “Cooman would call this the number one carry in the CIS and Europe.”
Dasha Karejka (also spelled Dasha Koreyka) is the stage persona of a male blogger who plays a woman on TikTok and Twitch: a deliberately naive, emotionally unrestrained 'village' g
Read the story
A portrait of a young man with an almost motionless expression, paired with the word "Babidzhon" from the streams and short videos of Sergey, known as Serzh Per. The absurd word an
Read the story
“What the fuck?” is a short reaction by Aleksey Shevtsov, known as itpedia, cut from his 2015 video blog. The question, with its sharp, surprised intonation, accompanies an absurd
Read the story
“Well, he died and he died” is a line from designer and blogger Artemiy Lebedev, who responds this way to the deaths of famous people in his news reviews. The phrase became a meme
Read the story
A meme superhero credited with stopping asteroids, saving the planet and bending the laws of nature. The best-known face is Dallas rapper Corey Struggs, and the cosmic exploits com
Read the story
You Know I Had to Do It to Em is a meme built on a photo of user LuckyLuciano17k standing on a sidewalk with his arms folded in front of him. The 2014 snapshot took on a noticeable
Read the story
“Meddison with a pistol” is a still from a stream by blogger and esports commentator Ilya Meddison, in which he holds a pistol and aims it at the camera. A shooting episode during
Read the story
“The fastest hand in the Wild West” transfers the image of an instant gunshot to everyday quickness. A photo of a revolver accompanies jokes about who got there first, reacted with
Read the story
ZXC is a Shadow Fiend 1v1 duel named after three hotkeys, and “1000-7” is the Tokyo Ghoul countdown that became its subculture's password.
Read the story
Team Spirit carry Yatoro shaved his head at The International 10, Spirit won $18.2 million, and the “bald buff” was born.
Read the story
UNiVeRsE's Earthshaker Echo Slam in the Roshan pit that won Evil Geniuses The International 2015 and about $6.6 million.
Read the story
A TI10 joke about Team Spirit’s Collapse on Magnus: his Skewer dragged enemies so far that fans said he was sending them straight to the airport.
Read the story
At TI10, Alliance players huddled for a group hug before facing T1, and Limmp didn’t join. The moment became a meme about team spirit minus one.
Read the story
BabyRage, the crying-baby Twitch emote, became tied to Dota 2 player Arteezy and now mocks anyone who tilts and blames the team.
Read the story