About

All the Things, sometimes known as X all the Y, is a snowclone and exploitable cartoon used to make a hyperbolic statement about performing an action. The person in the original comic panel is often manipulated to appear as a different character. (See also: fsjal)

Origin

The blog Hyperbole and a Half^[1] published a comic titled "This is Why I'll Never be an Adult" by artist Allie Brosh on June 17th, 2010. The comic describes the author's frustration with her inability to maintain a consistent enthusiasm for her daily responsibilities. The following two panels were part of the comic:

Derivatives often use one of these two images.

Spread

A Canvas^[2] thread that featured remixed images "clean all the things?" panel was created on April 28th, 2011. It was posted to the Canvas blog^[3] on May 2nd, 2011.

A Reddit thread posted on June 23rd titled "Every afternoon on NPR"^[4] had a derivative that parodied the radio show "All Things Considered", and reached the front page, receiving 6,299 upvotes. On June 25th a derivative was posted titled "How I feel whenever I play a Lego anything videogame"^[5] to Reddit's rage comic f7u12 subreddit, and received 95 upvotes. On June 27th, a derivative was posted titled "Whenever I build a campfire"^[6] that received 451 upvotes.

The /r/allthethings^[7] subreddit was created on July 13th, 2011, and has 97 subscribers as of August 18th, 2011.

Like most of the other ragefaces, the "CLEAN ALL THE THINGS!" comic touches a direct nerve in me and in many redditors. This community is devoted to memetic variations on that wonderful image.

Notable Derivatives

Templates

Search Interest

Search queries for the original phrase "clean all the things" picked up in June of 2010, and appear to be reaching their highest peak yet in June of 2011.

External References