The meme “Floating Boy Chasing Running Boy” is one of the best memes to come out of 2018. It features a photograph of one person seemingly levitating while another person sprints away in panic. The inherent weirdness and ambiguity make it perfect for absurdist humor and metaphorical exaggeration.
Origins of the meme
The original shot actually began as a student photography exercise, not as meme fodder. The image was taken around 2016 in a photography class at Cambridge-Isanti High School in Minnesota, during a “defy gravity” prompt. One student was asked to appear in motion while another would seem to float.
The photo sat quietly for a while — it wasn’t even up for best-in-class in the school’s judging — until someone on Reddit posted it to r/hmm on April 5, 2018, under the title “Floating Boy Chasing Running Boy.” The post received modest attention (50+ points) but laid the seed for what came next.
Just a few days later, on April 8, 2018, the image was reposted to 4chan’s /vg/ board under the name Larry_Breaches_Containment, with the caption *“blocks your path” — a tongue-in-cheek nod to SCP / containment lore. That was the moment the image began to migrate from niche to meme template.
Spread & Popularity
After it appeared on 4chan, the meme proliferated quickly. It found homes on Tumblr, Reddit, and meme aggregators often used with custom captions or inserted into chains of evolving memes. By mid-2018, variants abounded. People would replace the faces or add text overlays, labeling one side an overwhelmingly dominant concept and the other a helpless counterpart. Over time, the meme has a cult classic, its template and structure (floating “threat” vs fleeing “victim”) is widely recognized, and you see it used in comment threads, image macros, parody posts, etc.
Continued Presence
Even years later, nearly a decade after its creation, this strange yet iconic image still resurfaces across TikTok, Twitter (X), Reddit, and even YouTube animations proving that sometimes, the most ridiculous photos have the longest shelf life online.
The floating boy still chases, the running boy still flees, and the internet still laughs. Because in the end, he floats, he chases, and he never stops.
