Meaning
What does Look What They Did to My Boy mean?
Look what they did my boy refers to a famous quote from The Godfather, which goes like “Look how they massacred my boy”.
Online it was popularized as an image macro meme used to give voice to mourning.
Origin
What's the origin of Look What They Did to My Boy?
The Godfather premiered in the United States on March 14th, 1972.
One of the scenes involved Vito Corleone (portrayed by Marlon Brando) grieving over his son Sonny (played by James Caan) with the words “Look how they massacred my boy”.
The scene first appeared as a GIF on Giphy in 2017.
Spread & Usage
How did Look What They Did to My Boy spread?
In November, 2017, a meme contest was launched on Steemit, encouraging users to use the scene as a template, however none of those memes included the original line.
“Look what they did to my boy” and Look at how they a massacred my boy” started turning into a meme phenomenon in February 2018, as captioned edits of the shot, featuring subtitles were posted on the r/dankmemes sub.
It quickly spread on to other subreddits such as r/PrequelMemes, r/Animemes and r/HistoryMemes.
By 2019, “Look what they did to my boy” became a widely recognized meme, appearing on various social media sites, including 9GAG, Facebook, Twitter as well as Instagram.
