No one ever expects any kind of Spanish Inquisition.
The internet is an inherently unpredictable place. It should come as no surprise that new meme formats are created on an almost daily basis, with no real observable pattern. In that chaos, memes rise and fall as fast as a bird’s wings. Why then, has a meme that appeared first in the early 2000’s continued to remain popular for so long? After all, no one expected it (to).
From an analytical standpoint, this meme is fascinating. It has lasted for decades, and remained popular in many different social groups and age groups. It’s almost as common as Rickrolling, and is just as well known. Both of these formats share that key unexpectedness that allows them to transcend typical social groups, as well as age groups. Much of the younger audience that circulates the meme weren’t even alive to remember its origins. The first appearance of the joke was in September of 1970, when a British comedy show, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, coined the iconic phrase in an episode featuring three red-robed religious zealots who would appear whenever someone uttered the phrase, “I didn’t expect any kind of Spanish Inquisition.” Nowadays, it usually appears as a still frame from that episode, more commonly without white text which was ditched in the mid-2010’s. While, the meme has come a long way since Monty Python, there are a few elements from the sketch that are part of what keeps this meme going.
The first, is that namesake unexpectedness. Part of what makes this joke land, is that it can appear anywhere, unexpectedly. This is also done without being random, as there is a defined setup where the viewer or reader happens upon a familiar meme format or pattern. While I referred to the internet as chaotic, the implied randomness of chaos does not apply here, rather, there is only the implication that the viewer expects something else. This is a shared feeling, as being surprised is universal; it’s not specific to any age group or social sphere.
This is intertextuality, where the meme has been removed from its original intended discourse and “sew[n] together to create a new discourse” (Porter 34). It can also be referred to as “remixing.” By remixing the meme, specifically, combining it with other memes, you remove the original context of the Monty Python sketch and stitch it into other formats, which reaches a wider audience.
These audiences can be called discourse communities, where a group of like-minded individual share ideas. In this case the meme functions as an inside joke, where formats exclusive to one discourse community are remixed with the the Spanish Inquisition. However, the wider audience that I earlier referred to is the entire internet itself, as the meme is so prevalent that it even finds itself in professional discourse, as seen with this article from 2016 discussing presidential candidate Donald Trump, published in the LA Times.
Another key element in this meme’s popularity is that it hasn’t quite grown old. In order for a meme (or anything for that matter) to remain popular, it has to be an enjoyable experience. Being an annoyance scores you no points on the internet, and the execution of the Spanish Inquisition meme is no exception. While I briefly touched on the format of the meme earlier, I was focusing on the unexpectedness aspect which allows the joke to traverse multiple discourse communities. Being surprised isn’t always enjoyable, but the format of the Spanish Inquisition meme allows itself to be a pleasant surprise.
While the meme relies heavily on the element of surprise, it is not limited to having to always be a surprise. There is a pattern to the meme, particularly in its modern usage. The meme no longer appears by itself, rather it appears inside of another currently popular format. This in itself is a setup for success. By expecting a different punchline from the newer meme format, the appearance of the three inquisitors succeeds at being unexpected, and by appearing in a popular format, it succeeds at being a pleasant surprise. This remixing also prolongs the life of the Spanish Inquisition meme as there is an inexhaustible amount of new meme formats that the inquisitors could appear in.
This leads to the final aspect of the meme’s popularity: its infinite trajectory. Back in the 2010’s when the meme was becoming popular for the first time, it reflected the humor at the time. The early 2010’s was a period of simplicity for memes. Colorful backgrounds and crudely drawn faces were the norm, as were Youtube compilations and gifs playing on repeat. The latter are where the Spanish Inquisition meme really began to take off. As time progressed memes gradually became more abstract, and while we think nostalgically back on the days of “troll-face,” it becomes abundantly clear that meme formats back then were doomed to fade. With pop culture and public figures becoming the source of most meme formats, those structured “top text bottom text” memes just couldn’t keep up, as they had nowhere to go.
Our inquisitors are a different story. Now that we’ve established that they are able to reach an incredibly diverse audience, and that they can be adapted to fit any format, the inquisitors will go wherever someone decides to hide them. They aren’t linked to any political or social organization, so they can’t be tossed aside when sensationalism runs dry. Nor are they so structured that they can only appear a certain way like the myriad “change my mind” or “that’s a fact” memes. So many memes follow a parabolic trajectory, which is so formulaic, that you could predict the rise and fall not unlike a physics equation. Something controversial or new comes up, is talked about or used for awhile, then is dropped when people grow tired of it, usually in a matter of weeks.
There is no fall in sight for the Spanish Inquisition. Despite being named after a 15th century religious movement, there is no modern organization that is linked the meme, therefore no controversy. Since it continues to be used with new formats, people can’t grow tired of it before it is remixed again. And just when you think that it’s disappeared, it catches you, when you don’t expect it.
Works Cited:
Horsey, David. ‘Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition — or President Trump,’ The Los Angeles Times, September 20, 2016.
Porter, James E. “Intertextuality and the Discourse Community.” Rhetoric Review, Autumn 1986, pp. 34–47.