Zekrom Kick

About

Zekrom Kick refers to a series of image macros and edits joking about a Reddit post suggesting the Pokémon Zekrom could be buffed in competitive play with the addition of a move called "Zekrom Kick." Redditors in the /r/stunfisk subreddit voiced that the move's name was humorously uninspired, leading to numerous edits and memes about the hypothetical move.

Origin

On December 28th, 2023, Redditor Acebob11 posted a graphic to /r/stunfisk^[1] suggesting buffs to the Pokémon Zekrom and Reshiram by giving them additional moves. The user came up with signature moves for each Pokémon, named "Zekrom Punch," "Zekrom Kick" for Zekrom and "Reshiram Pulse" and "Reshiram Beam" for Reshiram. The post gained over 3,000 points in five months (shown below).

In the thread, users began to joke about the generic nature of the names. Moderator TheLaughingCat2 commented on the thread, writing, "this is a good format that I like a lot but you gotta pick less memey move names or else discussion will only be memey."

Spread

Over the following months, the move "Zekrom Kick" became the subject of memes among the competitive Pokémon community. On December 31st, 2023, Redditor juic3_b0i of /r/stunfisk^[2] posted a comic joking about the kicking Pokémon Hitmonlee training Zekrom to learn "Zekrom Kick," gaining over 2,400 points in five months (shown below, left).

On January 28th, 2024, Redditor K_Korp posted in /r/stunfisk^[3] a parody manga about Zekrom learning "Zekrom Kick," gaining over 1,400 points in four months (shown below, right).

The meme then spread out from /r/Stunfisk and onto Twitter / X. On February 22nd, 2024, Twitter user and animator @TheYisusOne^[4] voiced their confusion about the meme, gaining over 320 retweets and 4,700 likes in three months (shown below, top). On March 17th, user @AxoIotIMan^[5] posted a parody _Pokémon Showdown _ video in which Zekrom uses the move, gaining over 340 retweets and 2,400 likes in six weeks (shown below, bottom).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References