Me Explaining To My Mom Meme Template

An earnest explanation on the left meets an unconvinced listener on the right. Label what you are trying to explain, then name the audience that is not sharing your urgency.

The contrast is between effort and reception. One person has an argument, gestures, and a lot at stake; the other looks as though the explanation has not moved them.

The listener can be a parent, friend, colleague, or pet. The subject of the explanation supplies the joke, so choose something that matters much more to the speaker than to the audience.

The person on the left is creator Quenlin Blackwell, in a frame from a video she posted in March 2018. The person on the right is Ms. Juicy from Little Women: Atlanta, pictured on a couch watching the Dallas Cowboys in a January 2019 Instagram post. [1]

The two images did not record a mother and daughter having this conversation. A March 2019 Twitter post paired them as an explanation and a parent’s response. Both women later discussed their meme in a BuzzFeed interview. [1] [2]

Put a short description of the explanation near the bottom of the left panel. Put the listener’s name or role near the bottom of the right panel. Leave the faces and the speaker’s hands visible.

The mismatch should be clear without writing a full speech. A five-step plan presented to a cat needs only those two labels to explain why the discussion is going nowhere.

The explanation

What the person on the left is trying to get across.

The listener

Who is receiving the explanation on the right.

• Make the left label more specific than “me explaining.”
• Keep the listener’s label short.
• Choose a subject the speaker cares about more than the listener does.