Jeopardy! Pays Respects to Popular Gaming Meme

A recent episode of the Jeopardy! game show saw a familiar gaming meme making a surprise [...]

By Tanner Dedmon

A recent episode of the Jeopardy! game show saw a familiar gaming meme making a surprise appearance when the contestants were asked to solve riddles in two different categories: "Pay Respects" and "F." Those categories, of course, were references to the meme born from Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare where a somber moment was derailed by a prompt asking players to press a button to take an action during a funeral. None of the clues within the categories had anything to do with the meme itself, but it's clear from the names of the categories what the episode's writers were going for.

The Jeopardy! episode in question took place on April 30th and can be seen here through the archives for those who missed it. Located in the upper-right corner of the board were the two relevant categories, though their positions were flipped from how people would normally expect them to be presented. Still, the reference didn't escape those who knew of the meme and its origins.

For those who aren't in the know, it comes from Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, one of the Call of Duty games that sends players to fight wars in the future. During a funeral for a fallen friend, players are asked to press a button to "pay respects." On the PC version, that means pressing the "F" key. The video below shows the moment as it happens in-game.

The scene turned into a meme because of how out of place the action felt compared to the rest of the sequence. Everything else was touching and perfectly in place before the control was thrust back onto the player by asking them to press a button to honor their fallen friend.

Since then, the meme's been used to empathize with pretty much any unfortunate moment which could even be remotely connected to gaming. People type "F" in Twitch streams and other chats when bad things happen, so if you ever see it being spammed, you now know why.

Jeopardy! has been on a roll with things like this lately. Another set of categories highlighted above by the show's Twitter account recently featured an Archer reference. Perhaps we can expect some more memes to be highlighted in the show's categories in the future.

0comments
Start the Conversation

of