Dramatic Crossroads

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Part of a series on Object Labeling. [View Related Entries]

About

Dramatic Crossroads, also known as Two Roads or Two Paths, refers to a series of memes based on the artwork of the Yu-Gi-Oh! card "Dramatic Crossroads." Starting in February 2020, the artwork for the card has been used as source material for object-labeling memes showing an individual faced with two choices, typically humorous in nature.

Origin

On August 24th, 2005, episode 47 "Chazz-anova" of the anime series Yu-Gi-Oh! GX premiered.^[1] In the episode, the character Chazz Princeton uses a trap card "Dramatic Crossroads" (scene shown below; 15:27 mark). The artwork of the card depicts a young boy standing at a crossroads, his left path leading to a sun-lit castle and his right to a dark and menacing castle. The card has not been added to the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game.^[2]

On April 27, 2017, DeviantArt^[3] artist AlanMac95 posted a mock-up of the cart. The post received over 1,000 views and 22 favorites in four years (still image from the episode shown below, left; card and artwork shown below, center and right).

On February 16th, 2020, Twitter^[4] user @IrisHeartfang posted an object-labeling meme based on the artwork, writing "tfw u are a broney in 2012" and captioning the light and the dark castles "become trans girl" and "become white supremacist" (tweet and image shown below). The post received over 1,300 retweets and 6,400 likes in one year.

Spread

The post was widely circulated online in the following months. For example, on February 18th, 2020, Redditor^[5] randomcomputer22 shared a screenshot of the post, gaining over 670 upvotes in six months.

On February 19th, 2020, iFunny^[6] user Some_Cool_Asian_Guy posted the earliest found derivative meme based on the image, editing @IrisHeartfang's post so that the boy follows both paths simultaneously (shown below). The post received over 1,100 smiles in one year.

The format saw limited popularity online through 2020. For example, on July 21st, 2020, iFunny^[7] user TheNewKeynesian made a post that received over 4,400 smiles in eight months (shown below, left). In December 2020, a version of the meme captioned "Gymcel / Become Trans," created by an unknown user, was also widely circulated^[8]^[9] (shown below, center).

On February 5th, 2021, Twitter^[10] user @WereInHellYT posted a version of the meme captioned "Bimbofication / Jokerification" that gained over 5,500 retweets and 53,200 likes in one month (shown below, right).

Following the viral spread of @WereInHellYT's post, the format saw a surge in use, primarily on Twitter.