Meaning
What does Thank you for coming to my TED talk mean?
Thank you for coming to my TED talk is a phrasal meme, said after someone makes an obscure point.
In a way, when someone uses this phrase, they are acknowledging a personal idea or claim that they found great and are dismissing any negative opinion about it.
Also, the phrase parodies the popular TED talk series, where in some cases the statements made by the performers are very obscure and meaningless.
via MEME
Origin
What's the origin of Thank you for coming to my TED talk?
According to Meme Documentation, the origin of the meme can be traced back to the BBC Sherlock fandom on Tumblr.
On May 28th, 2015, Tumblr user beysuspng reblogged one of their earlier posts that read “LISTEN UP: john and sherlock” with the following phrase “Thanks for coming to my TED talk.”
The original post gained over 1,100 notes on Tumblr.
Spread & Usage
How did Thank you for coming to my TED talk spread?
Over the course of the following years, the phrase “Thank you for coming to my TED talk” received lots of recognition and a somewhat global presence.
In the mid-2017, it began to expand outside of the Sherlock fandom. A great example is the post that gained over 63,000 notes in a couple of days on Tumblr, using a variant of the phrase in the text.
Also, “Thank you for coming to my TED talk” is a popular phrase on Twitter nowadays, so much so that bigger celebrities also use it to finish their tweets in a more esoteric way.
External resources
- Meme Documentation — Explained: thanks for coming to my TED talk
- Know Your Meme – Thanks For Coming To My TED Talk