Brian Williams Was There 2 Meme Template
This “Brian Williams Was There” meme grew out of the February 2015 scrutiny of Williams’s repeated account that he had been aboard a helicopter hit by enemy fire while covering the 2003 Iraq invasion. Williams apologized for “a mistake in recalling” the events and said he had been in a following helicopter, not the one that took fire. The online response included photoshops placing him into famous historical and fictional scenes under #BrianWilliamsMisremembers and #BrianWilliamsMemories, satirizing inflated claims of personal involvement. The current app image is a news-desk portrait rather than one of those historical composites; the caption supplies the alleged events.
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What the Brian Williams Was There 2 meme means
This “Brian Williams Was There” meme grew out of the February 2015 scrutiny of Williams’s repeated account that he had been aboard a helicopter hit by enemy fire while covering the 2003 Iraq invasion. Williams apologized for “a mistake in recalling” the events and said he had been in a following helicopter, not the one that took fire. The online response included photoshops placing him into famous historical and fictional scenes under #BrianWilliamsMisremembers and #BrianWilliamsMemories, satirizing inflated claims of personal involvement. The current app image is a news-desk portrait rather than one of those historical composites; the caption supplies the alleged events.
A single still of NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams seated at a news desk, wearing a dark suit and striped tie and gesturing as he speaks. A small NBC mark appears at lower left; full-width caption bands sit above and below the image.
How the joke works
Slot 1 (top band) gives a comparatively ordinary event or initial claim that Brian says he witnessed. Slot 2 (bottom band) escalates to a more important, famous, or absurd event he also claims to have been part of. The joke is the growing implausibility and self-importance, echoing the “I was there” photoshops. Keep both lines as parallel claims about his supposed presence and make the second a clear escalation. The pictured news anchor is the source image; the captions should be fictional satirical claims, not presented as fact.
- The less significant event Brian supposedly witnessed or participated in.
- The more significant, famous, or absurd event he also claims to have witnessed; escalate from slot 1.
Caption examples
- I was there when the office printer jammed.
- I was also there when the first moon landing happened.
Both lines are claims of firsthand presence, and the bottom line escalates from a trivial incident to a famous historical event.
- I saw a dog at the park.
- I saw another dog at the park.
The second line does not escalate the scale or implausibility, so it lacks the template’s central joke.
Situations it fits
- a small everyday incident followed by an implausibly grand historical claim
- someone exaggerating their role in progressively more important events
- a person claiming firsthand experience of increasingly unlikely pop-culture moments
- gently mocking self-aggrandizing storytelling with clearly fictional examples
When this format does not fit
- Do not make the second event less significant than the first; the claim should escalate.
- Do not use two unrelated statements that do not sound like claims of personal presence.
- Do not imply that an invented event claim about Brian Williams is factual; the meme is satirical.
- Avoid defamatory or harmful allegations about real people; use harmless public history or fiction.
