A group of Spider-Men gathered over the weekend to celebrate Halloween by recreating (and expanding on) the popular “Spider-Man pointing” meme. Originally a screenshot from the 1960s Saturday morning Spider-Man cartoon, the image has gained popularity on the internet, often used when comparing two people or things that don’t seem aware they’re basically the same. We’ve seen it recreated writ large before, such as when about a dozen cosplayers did it at New York Comic Con in 2019, shortly after it was included as a gag in the Oscar-winning animated feature Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
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The Halloween video didn’t have as many Spideys in it, but differed from the NYCC version in a couple of key ways that make it fun: it featured exclusively Peter Parker Spider-Men (as opposed to the various multiversal variants seen in the NYCC photos I took), and it takes place on the streets of (apparently) New York, where Spider-Man is most at home.
You can see it below.
The video comes from writer Amelia Keesler, and already has more than 2 million views on Tiktok.
Gatherings like this are not uncommon at comic book conventions, of course; it’s pretty common for big group shots of superheores or even big crowds of a single character — especially fourth-wall-breaking characters like Deadpool or Harley Quinn — to gather and take photos, or generally act in-character at the same time and place. It’s a little less common in the non-“geek” parts of the world, and always fun when it happens.
Last night, Monsters Inc. and Ghost World actor Steve Buscemi took home the meme crown for recreating his own “How do you do, fellow kids?” costume from 30 Rock. A screenshot from that episode, with the dialogue included, has become one of the most popular memes on the internet, which ironically means that Buscemi — the guy in the meme about boomers who don’t “get” the younger generation — seems to have a pretty keen sense of what’s going to make the Tiktok generation laugh.
Here’s hoping we get a version of this meme in live action next month, when Spider-Man: No Way Home drops in theaters and fans find out whether the rumors of multiple Spider-Men in the movie are true or not.
