Dying Is Gay

The game and the animation

Team Fortress 2 is a team-based multiplayer shooter from Valve, released in 2007. Players are divided into Reds and Blues, and each class has its own weapons and lines. One of the best-known characters of the Red team is the Soldier, a loud warrior with a rocket launcher.

The meme is taken not from the game itself but from the fan animation “Endless Unusual Troubles,” published on YouTube by a creator under the username STBlackST on September 14, 2019. In it the Soldier recalls his father’s words, and in one scene the phrase “son, remember: dying is...” is heard, followed by the offensive word from the title.

What is in the picture

The frame is made in the Source Filmmaker style: figures in the cartoonish 3D style of Team Fortress 2. On the right, with its back to the camera, stands a large bald figure in red clothing, while on the wooden floor in front of it sits a small bald person in a diaper, with a baby bottle and a toy weapon beside them.

This scene relates to the hero’s childhood memories, but the exact moment of the animation cannot be determined from the picture itself. It is also important that the frame does not show the Soldier in his usual form with a helmet: the description “red soldier voicing an opinion” does not match what is visible.

How the phrase became a meme

The image with the quote was posted on Reddit on September 15, 2019, in several popular meme communities, and it quickly gathered tens of thousands of upvotes. In December 2019 the meme returned as a single frame and drew even more responses. These are the dates of the earliest publications found, not proof of priority.

What is funny here is not the moral but the delivery: an adult solemnly announces a “rule of life” to an infant that no one needs, and the child listens as expected. The absurdity of the phrase, said with a serious face, became the basis of the joke.

Caption examples

The original formula matters less than its structure: “son, remember:” followed by an absurd rule. Here are several examples.

“Son, remember: tea goes cold exactly when you start drinking it.” Paternal wisdom that turns out to be a domestic observation.

“Son, remember: a letter without an attachment is just a letter that has to be sent again.” A joke about working life.

“Son, remember: any sofa knows on its own when you promised yourself you would get up.” The object gets a will of its own.

About the word itself

The original line was built on a word that was once used as a common insult. Today such usage is considered offensive, and it is best not to repeat it in ordinary conversation. If you use the picture, it is better to replace the ending of the phrase with your own absurd rule: this keeps the comic delivery while dropping the offensive layer.

Over the years the meme has turned into a memory of a particular moment in internet humor, and the most successful modern captions do not repeat the original word but play with the format itself: “a father teaches his son.”