You Look Lonely

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Editor's Note: This entry contains spoilers for Blade Runner 2049; read at your own caution.

About

You Look Lonely, also known as Sad Officer K, refers to a scene from 2017 film Blade Runner 2049 in which the main protagonist K, played by Ryan Gosling, silently watches a giant holographic advertisement after having been badly injured. Following the film's trailer and release, the scene circulated as an exploitable, with K and Joi usually replaced with other characters. As the meme developed, K's face bathed in purple light became widely used as an image macro expressing sadness and despair.

Origin

On October 6th, 2017, the neo-noir science fiction film Blade Runner 2049 premiered in the United States.^[1] In one scene of the film, the main protagonist K, portrayed by Ryan Gosling, is approached by a 3D advertisement for holographic companion Joi, with a destroyed copy of which K used to have a romantic relationship. The scene was teased in Blade Runner 2049 trailer,^[2] released on July 17th, 2017.

Hello, handsome. What a day, huh? You look lonely. I can fix that. You look like a good Joe.

Spread

After the release, the film gained a significant following on 4chan, with multiple threads discussing the film and its scenes being posted on /tv/ and other boards in the following months. On October 8th, an anonymous 4chan user posted a Wojak edit of K in the scene to /tv/ board.^[3] On October 16th, 2017, an anonymous 4chan user used the image for a BR 2049-based greentext. ^[4]

On October 14th, 2017, Twitter user @BibLando posted one of the earliest known edits of the scene in which K and Joi were replaced with Grape-kun and Hululu. ^[5] The tweet received over 1,500 upvotes and 4,500 likes in two years.

In the following years, still images of the scene saw consistent use as exploitables, with K and Joi replaced with other iconic pairs. Facebook community Blade Runner Repliposting™^[6] and VK community Гослинг бежит по лезвию (Gosling Bladeruns)^[7] were launched on October 13th, 2017, and September 27th, 2018, respectively, both posting multiple notable examples of the meme.

Gosling Face Image Macro

While the scene, in general, was a popular source for image manipulation, the unaltered image of K found use as an image macro separate from the scene as a whole.

One early use of this derivative was on October 17, 2017, shortly after the film's release, when Redditor ThePrimeOptimus posted a meme of K reacting to another line in the film on the subreddit r/bladerunner.^[8]

On January 26, 2019, Twitter^[9] user xedgewin tweeted the image of K next to a poster of "Shen Yun":subcultures/shen-yun. The tweet received over 8,000 retweets and 31,000 likes in two years.

On May 12, 2019, Twitter^[10] user MessyFingers tweeted the image with a caption about the recently launched Snapchat Gender Change Filter. Reposts of the tweet have gained thousands of upvotes on multiple websites.^[11]

On December 28th, 2020, Redditor ShaolinFantastic13 posted the image with a caption about "Cyberpunk 2077":subcultures/cyberpunk-2077 to the subreddit r/LowSodiumCyberpunk.^[12] The image received more than 1,800 upvotes in eight months.