I used to think that, then I took $400,000 worth of custom tooled cartridges to the knee in 12 seconds.
Someone elsewhere was bitching about Valve games spawning memes the other day in a thread discussing Skyrim & Portal 2’s scores in some gaming rag. The irony wasn’t lost on me.
I used to like annoying memes…
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BUTTHENITOOKANARROWTOTHE :smack:
Those warriors from Hammerfell have curved swords. CURVED. SWORDS.
I think we should just get it over with and change the name of this place from “Straight Dope Message Board” to “Let’s discuss Reddit topics.”
Anyway, here’s the thing about memes: They’re never funny on their own. The amusement value is how well the meme is applied to a seemingly unrelated topics. They’re funny when used in a way that makes you go “Oh! I didn’t see that coming. But now that you point it out, I see the relationship. You’re clever for having noticed it, and that amuses me.”
For example, if someone’s puzzling over a math problem and goes “This is hard.” and someone goes “That’s what she said,” it’s not funny. It’s too obvious. Too easy. ‘Hard’ is just too directly related to sex to make it funny. But if you’re packing up your car for a move and you say “I think it we turn the mattress this way, you might be able to fit it in better,” then “That’s what she said” becomes funny because the phrase is long and complicated, which at first seems unlikely to relate to sex.
So back to “Arrow in the knee”. The thing is, you can easily relate that to so many things and they don’t really have anything to do with arrows and knees. “I used to go to college, but then I took an arrow to the knee.” :rolleyes: College and arrows are unrelated. The only thing tying the phrase and meme together is “I used to”. But if you were to say “I used to be the archery captain at my college, but then I took an arrow to the knee,” it’s funny because it’s more directly related.
But true archery hardly ever comes up. It’s damn near impossible to actually use the meme in a way that’s clever instead of shoe-horned. So with everyone trying and failing, it quickly got old for lack of proper use.
Q.E.D.
I haven’t even PLAYED Skyrim and I’m tired of this “joke”. It wasn’t funny to begin with, which dramatically decreases the lifespan. 
I would actually go so far as to say that this “joke” was old the second time it was told.
I used to be able to use memes in clever ways that aren’t shoe-horned…
u mad bro?
y u no take arrow to knee?
Goddamn it, man, you beat me to it.
I dunno, I thought arrow in the knee was funny the first couple of times (mostly from playing Skyrim I would guess) but it exploooooooded way too much. I’ve been hanging out at Reddit a lot more lately and it’s like a cancer there.
In Russia, Chuck Norris herd u liek arrows so he put one in your base so you can form babby while you has cheezburger.
Don’t graze me, bro!
For those who still aren’t clear: Skyrim is a single player RPG. The nonplayer characters are given “idle” audio voiceovers to make them seem more “real”.
This youtube shows them saying several (towards the end).
I don’t think it’s old, yet. 
EDIT: No poll answer for me, there. 
I never heard of it before this thread… then I took an arrow to the knee.
Without context, the line isn’t funny.
In a proper context? Sure. I’ve only ever seen one use of it that was. (A T-Shirt with Fluttershy from My Little Pony shouting it.)
Responding to everything with ‘FUS RO DAH!’, or just ‘shouting’ it out of the blue (you know, the usual context)…not at all funny.
For those who haven’t seen what I’m referring to: NSFW.
It’s pretty much a comedy vehicle even inside the game, and the sight gag of someone yelling in anger / frustration / etc and having it project physical force is common in comedy animation.
Basically this. The worst is when memes leave the safe confines of the internet and find themselves in everyday life. For instance, I remember one time when I whistled for a cab and when it came near the license plate said fresh and it had dice in the mirror. If anything I could say that this cab was rare, but I thought, “Nah, forget it. Yo home to Bel-Air!” I pulled up to the house about 7 or 8 and I yelled to the cabby yo holmes smell ya later. Looked at my kingdom I was finally there, to sit on my throne as the prince of Bel-Air.
Cool story, bro.
