Memes are weird. They're often short-lived, flashing across our screens and disappearing into the digital void before we even get the joke. But every once in a while, something like brother can i have some oats crawls out of the depths of an obscure Facebook group and manages to lodge itself permanently into the collective consciousness of the internet. It’s a strange, oil-painted nightmare that shouldn't be funny, yet it somehow captures the exact flavor of modern absurdist humor.
If you weren't on the weird side of the web in 2016, you might look at this and see just a poorly rendered painting of two pigs. One is massive, hulking, and seemingly hoarding a trough of grain. The other is smaller, scrawnier, and peering through a wooden fence with a look of desperate longing. But for those who know, this image represents a pivotal moment in the shift toward "surreal" or "deep-fried" meme culture. It’s not about a punchline. It’s about an atmosphere.
Where did the oats actually come from?
Most people assume this was just some random Photoshop job, but the truth is a bit more grounded in actual art history. The original image is an oil painting by an artist named John Frederick Herring Senior, a 19th-century painter famous for his depictions of horses and farm life. The piece is actually titled Feeding the Pigs (1850). Back then, it was just a standard, somewhat idyllic representation of livestock. Herring wasn't trying to be funny. He was trying to sell a painting to a Victorian landowner who probably really liked pigs.
Fast forward over 150 years. The image was rediscovered by the internet. It first started gaining traction on a Facebook page called "Depressed CGI Memes," though it wasn't CGI at all. The creator of the page added the now-iconic dialogue: "brother can i have some oats." The response from the larger pig—the one clearly winning at life—was a cold, soul-crushing "no."
It’s the simplicity that kills. It’s the "brother." That one word adds a layer of Shakespearean betrayal to a painting of farm animals.
The mechanics of surreal humor
Why did this blow up? Honestly, it’s hard to pin down. We live in a world where mainstream comedy can feel a bit... polished. Too scripted. Brother can i have some oats represents the antithesis of that. It’s part of a lineage of memes that includes things like "Bepis" or "Moth Lamp." It relies on a specific type of linguistic degradation where words are spelled slightly wrong or used in overly formal, yet nonsensical, contexts.
💡 You might also like: Is Steven Weber Leaving Chicago Med? What Really Happened With Dean Archer
Think about the way the smaller pig asks. He doesn't say "Hey, give me some food." He uses a term of kinship. He’s reaching out for a connection, for shared resources in a cold, indifferent world. And the big pig? He’s the gatekeeper. He has the oats. He has the power. In a weird, twisted way, it’s a critique of resource scarcity, or maybe just a funny picture of a fat pig. You decide.
The meme eventually evolved into what people call "The Oats Saga." Users didn't just stop at the first image. They started editing the painting to create entire narrative arcs. In some versions, the skinny pig eventually gets his oats. In others, he goes on a quest. There are even versions where the pigs are photoshopped into space or medieval battlefields. It’s a testament to how a single, static image can become a canvas for communal storytelling.
Impact on the "Deep Fried" aesthetic
You’ve probably seen those memes that look like they’ve been photocopied a thousand times and then dropped in a deep fryer. That’s an intentional style. The oats meme was one of the early adopters of this visual degradation. By the time it hit its peak on Reddit’s r/me_irl and various Twitter circles, the image was often distorted, high-contrast, and grainy.
This aesthetic serves a purpose. It makes the meme feel like a "cursed image." It strips away the pretension of the original 19th-century oil painting and turns it into something raw and digital. It’s the visual equivalent of a distorted bass boost in a song. It hits differently.
Why we keep coming back to the oats
- The Relatability Factor: Everyone has felt like the skinny pig at some point, looking through the fence at someone else’s success (their "oats").
- Linguistic Weirdness: The phrasing is just "off" enough to be memorable. You don't say it; you feel it.
- Low Barrier to Entry: You don't need to know five years of internet lore to find a pig asking for oats funny. It’s a gateway meme.
The legacy of John Frederick Herring Sr.
It’s kiiinda wild to think about what Herring would think if he knew his professional animal portraits were being used to fuel a decade of internet irony. He was a prolific artist. He painted the winners of the St. Leger and the Derby for 33 years. He was an "Animal Painter" to the Duchess of Kent. His work is technically masterful, focusing on the anatomy and texture of animals.
📖 Related: Is Heroes and Villains Legit? What You Need to Know Before Buying
Yet, his most enduring contribution to the 21st century isn't his technical skill. It's the fact that one of his pigs looked particularly greedy. This happens more often than you’d think. Historical art is a goldmine for meme creators because the expressions in old paintings often feel overly dramatic or misplaced in a modern context. Just look at the "Distracted Boyfriend" meme—it’s basically just a modern, stock-photo version of the same tropes found in classical narrative painting.
Misconceptions about the meme
A lot of people think the meme started on 4chan. While 4chan definitely helped propagate the weirder, more offensive variations, the "heart" of the oats meme—the surreal, slightly melancholic vibe—was really cultivated on Facebook and Tumblr. Those platforms allowed for the long-form "saga" style of posting that gave the pigs their personalities.
Another common mistake is thinking the pigs are CGI. They aren't. As mentioned, it's a scan of a real oil painting. The "CGI" label in the early days was just part of the irony. The internet loves to mislabel things to add another layer of confusion.
How to use "Oats" in modern slang
If you're trying to use this in the wild today, it’s mostly used as a shorthand for wanting something you can't have. Or, more commonly, it's used to describe a situation that feels absurd or unfair.
- "Brother, may I have some [Insert Desired Object]" is a standard template.
- It's often used ironically when someone is being "extra" or acting like they're starving for attention.
- Sometimes, it's just a way to acknowledge you're in a "weird part of the internet" conversation.
Honestly, the meme has matured. It’s no longer the "hot new thing," which actually makes it better. It’s now part of the "Old Guard" of surreal memes. It’s a classic. Like a fine wine, or a very old, very moldy trough of grain.
👉 See also: Jack Blocker American Idol Journey: What Most People Get Wrong
Practical steps for the meme-curious
If you want to explore the world of surreal memes further, don't just stick to the surface level. Go look at the r/surrealmemes subreddit, but be warned: it's a rabbit hole. You’ll find characters like Meme Man and Orange, who exist in a multi-dimensional void.
To really understand the brother can i have some oats phenomenon, you should:
- Look up the original painting: See Feeding the Pigs in its full, unedited glory. The detail is actually incredible.
- Trace the "Saga": Look for the compiled "Oats Saga" threads on sites like Know Your Meme or old Reddit archives. The storytelling is surprisingly consistent.
- Understand the "Brother" trope: Look at how other memes use terms of formal address to create humor (like the "Lömp" moth).
The beauty of the internet is its ability to take something mundane from 1850 and turn it into a symbol of modern absurdity. It shows that humans, regardless of the century, always find something funny about a pig who just wants a little bit of what his brother has. The oats are a metaphor. The pig is us. We are all just looking for our oats in a world that often tells us "no."
To dig deeper into this specific era of internet culture, look into the rise of "Irony Posting" between 2015 and 2018. This was the period when the internet moved away from the "Advice Animal" format (like Grumpy Cat) and toward the abstract, nonsensical humor that defines the oats meme. Understanding that transition is key to understanding why we find things funny today.