The great blessing and curse of the internet is that it makes you realize that everyone has an opinion, and you're going to hear it whether you like it or not. Never before have so many people had access to such an accessible public forum, and boy, do they make sure we know about it.
It's not that these things don't happen in real life — after all, pretty much everyone has been cornered at a party, endured a bad date, or even counted down the minutes until it's their stop on the bus thanks to somebody chewing their ear off about one thing or another.
If fourth wave feminism has taught us anything, it's that a large proportion of these situations involve a man talking to (or rather, at) a woman. Whether by accident or instantly regretted choice, most women have found themselves on the receiving end of an unexpected monolog about something that they already know, or they don't necessarily care about.
While it's fully possible to be a female know-it-all, it is men who have been given the special term for it. Mansplaining happens everywhere and every day, online and offline.
Memes are a very influential outlet for this kind of communication, although it's not always gender-specific. When it comes down to it, a lot of the image macros we consume are basically miniature rants that we can't really respond to, condensed into eye-catching little pictures.
Mansplaining in particular is something that image caption memes have gotten a lot of mileage out of over the years. We've seen the fancy date gone wrong, with the couple watching a baseball game in the "Bro Explaining" meme, and the excruciating pick up lines being practiced in the famous Milk Edinburgh club photo.
Now, we have another one to add to the collection in the form of "John Silver Explaining To Anna Jay". The meme depicts a picture of the two eponymous wrestlers in conversation, with Silver seemingly pointing out something to the uncomfortable looking Jay. The good news is that the pair are in on the joke, as the screengrabs come from a sketch on the YouTube channel Being The Elite. The even better news is that the image has proved to be a very versatile caption meme. While the conversations themselves may be very uncomfortable, at least the jokes are funny. Just don't try any of these at home.
