Why Are You Here? I Thought You Were Financially Stable

About

Why Are You Here? I Thought You Were Financially Stable is a miscaptioned screenshot and exploitable image macro from the Netflix show Squid Game depicting two of the main characters during the red light, green light game. The intent of the meme is to show off things that cost a lot of money, such as a collection or an expensive item. This can sometimes turn the meme into a flex, but can also be sad when referring to gacha.

Origin

The screenshot itself comes from the first episode of Squid Game, released September 17th, 2021, when the players are getting ready to play red light, green light with the main character Seong Gi-Hun surprised to see his friend Cho Sang-Woo, who he believed was very wealthy, participating.

The meme has been used since the show's release in various online communities to show the wealth, or waste, of its members. An example of this is seen in an upload to the Final Fantasy Brave Exvius: War Of The Visions subreddit on October 25th, 2021, by the Redditor^[1] Neocentrik. The post, titled "I could be traveling the world with the amount of money I've spent on this game," received 180 upvotes in seven days (shown below).

Spread

This meme continued to spread in the following weeks as Sang-Woo himself was incorporated into the meme template. An example was uploaded to the /r/dankmemes subreddit by Redditor^[2] GrzyB171 on October 29th, 2021, in which Sang-Woo is seen donating a large sum of money to Twitch streamer Pokimane, earning 13,000 upvotes in three days (shown below).

This was expounded on further by incorporating real-world hobbies into it, as seen in the meme uploaded to the /r/prequelmemes subreddit by Redditor^[3] WanMillionClub on October 30th, 2021, showing Sang-Woo owning several pieces of Star Wars toys, and earning 24,000 upvotes in two days (shown below).

Template

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References