There's been one impostor since the ancient days
Venting through time and space and taking different names!
What if we've been brainwashed to write this song as well?
Because these very chords are looking sus as hell! Among Us, as it turns out, managed to originate a lot of memes ever since its Colbert Bump. So much in fact, that it seems to have left a mark on the state of meme culture as a whole.
- EMERGENCY MEETING! ExplanationThe Emergency Meeting alert comes in abruptly and is especially annoying if it interrupts your task. Outside the game context, it is used as a reaction similar to "Hol' up!", implying the person being reacted to will be put on the spot for their questionable opinion.
- The meme has also crossed over with Boardroom Meeting
, a meme where an employee suggests something different and the boss flings him out of the window, due to the similar premise.
- DEAD BODY REPORTED! ExplanationAnother big notification that interrupts whatever you're doing to trigger a meeting. This one is used to imply a powerful burn that's hard to get a comeback against, or as another way of saying "You Are Already Dead" for scenarios such as the impending doom of hitting someone's Berserk Button.
- Crewmate
There are [X] Impostors among us. ExplanationThe starting screen of the game is often parodied by replacing the crewmates with a group of characters from another series, and replacing "Impostor" with other series-relevant terms. For example, hackers in Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout.- Pigs are Sus. ExplanationThe scientific name of the genus that includes pigs and boars is Sus. The pun was not lost on Among Us fans.
- "Their" in Spanish. ExplanationThe Spanish word for "their" (in the traditional plural sense) is sus (pronounced "soose").
- The Last Susper. ExplanationA popular variant is comparing this to Jesus's 13 disciples and Judas's betrayal in The Bible by portraying the Last Supper as an ordinary round of Among Us, with Judas as the Impostor and Jesus being mistaken for one before getting crucified for it shortly after.
- "You cannot spell Jesus without spelling 'sus'." ExplanationJokes about how Jesus Christ is sus because of his name.
- "I saw Jesus go into that cave and I didn't see him come out; he must have vented." ExplanationIn a similar vein, there have been many jokes about Jesus venting because his corpse was placed in a tomb, only for the soldiers guarding his tomb to discover his body is missing (as he was revived).
- Similarly, the ejection screen is parodied in the style of "[X] was (not) an/the Impostor. [N] Impostors remain."
- Any story or piece of media involving infiltration and/or trying to find The Mole has since been inevitably compared to a game of Among Us.
- "Nah, man, I was in Electrical/Medbay doing tasks." ExplanationSimilar to the above, people will sometimes edit scenes where one character accuses another of a crime or something similar, only to have the accused be replaced with an Among Us astronaut and deny the accusation with some variation of this phrase.
- As the game has actually existed all the way back in 2018 but only exploded in popularity in August 2020, older fans of the game tend to joke about "playing Among Us before it was cool."
- Due to the Punny Name, comparisons with the Pokémon Amoonguss was to be expected.
- Custom kill animations. ExplanationDue to the simplicity of the art style and already exaggerated kill animations, there's been an upsurge of fan-made kill animations playing with fun ideas ranging from the Impostor punching a hole through the victim's chest to flicking the victim so hard, they fly off the screen. Taken up to eleven in certain fan-made animations where the Impostor kills the victim in outlandish ways such as sending them to Brazil, turning and leaving their fate as a "marketable plushie", shoving them into a certain, yellow rabbit mascot suit, or even giving them headphones only to blast extremely loud music to the point of their faceplate getting instantly broken. See here, here, here, here, here, here, aaannnddd here.
- The torso punching hole custom kill animation has also been memetically associated with JoJo's Bizarre Adventure due to the number of main characters in the show who infamously die in such a manner.
- Other Jojo-related memes that became widespread regarding Among Us include ejected crewmates left floating in space being compared to the defeat of Kars in Battle Tendency, "Eventually Kars stopped thinking", or the Chariot Requiem arc in Golden Wind where the main characters switch souls with main villain Diavolo's soul in another body hiding among them and killing Narancia in the process.
- "Oh dear, it seems you've seen it." ExplanationA line uttered by main villain Yoshikage Kira in Diamond is Unbreakable after Shigechi discovers he is a Serial Killer hiding among the folks of Morioh, prompting Kira to kill him to prevent him exposing his identity. As Impostors have a similar motivation, to take out any Crewmate that catches them in the act of killing or venting, the comparisons were pretty much expected.
- Similarly, crossover animations with Ace Attorney and Danganronpa are also abundant, due to both franchises sharing similar premises to the game.
- A memetic way to depict the intelligence of the average pub game is through stories where the chat goes with the flimsiest accusation tossed out, even if it contradicts other evidence or what the accuser has seen.
- "[X] sus" Explanation"Sus" for "suspicious" — and anything, reasonable or not, can be called suspicious activity. Spoke too much? "Trying too hard to defend themselves. Sus." Spoke too little? "Trying to slip away in the conversation. Sus." Walk in the same direction as a Crewmate to get to a task? "They're following me. Sus." Even having witnessed verification of your innocence with a visual task won't save you from getting called "sus".
- "[color] LOOKING SUS" "Dude you're [that color]" ExplanationSomeone, who may or may not be the Impostor, accusing a teammate by their color, forgetting that they themselves are that color.
- "[color] LOOKING SUS" "[color]'s dead" ExplanationIn a similar vein, someone, either an Impostor or a Crewmate who didn't bother to look at the list to see who did or didn't make it to a meeting, accusing a Crewmate who is, in fact, dead. Do this more than once? Have fun being ejected.
- "I saw [X] vent!" ExplanationWhile catching someone using the vents is a surefire way of getting them voted off, the average pub game's too eager to go with this accusation before verifying its authenticity. More damning cases see the subject of this accusation as a crewmember who had a strong alibi, only for the players who can vouch for them to conveniently forget that.
- "No, I was just cleaning the vents." ExplanationThis was a stock excuse of players caught using the vents before the Clean Vent task was added to the game.
- "Self-report." ExplanationImpostors can self-report as a Wounded Gazelle Gambit to put them lower on the suspect list, but in practice, this places you higher on the suspect list if anything, because by now, almost everyone knows that Impostors can self-report.
- "I'm new to this game how do I go in the vents like [X] did" ExplanationA phrase used by or making fun of newcomers to the game who don't understand that only impostors, engineers and Hide and Seek crewmates can use the vents. Also doubles as a method of accusation.
- "Start" ExplanationVery impatient players will bug the host to start at first opportunity, even if the room's far from max capacity, and leave if kept waiting. This behavior is also attributed to players who will leave right away if they're not the Impostor, making for an unsatisfying experience for everyone else.
- Sometimes, this mockery is depicted by the group voting out a player who's not part of the accusations at all.
- Among Us has rightfully been described as Werewolf but Recycled In Space.
- Due to its secluded placement in the map, poor lighting, abundance of tasks, and easily-accessible vent, the Electrical Room of the Skeld map is infamous for being a death zone for Crewmates as Impostors can easily kill them and get away with it.
- The Card Swipe task is notorious for having a very narrow margin between "too fast" and "too slow". Getting it right on the first try is jokingly called "suspicious behavior".
- "I would like to bring to everyone's attention, that I've just made THE CLEANEST CARD SWIPE EVER!" ExplanationOriginating from this video by Revtrosity, calling meetings and copy-pasting this phrase into the chat has quickly become a very popular way to troll people in Among Us games.
- As of the November 2021 update that brought achievements to Among Us, there's an achievement for successfully swiping the card on the first try, called "IMPOSSIBLE TASK".
- Sweaty Speedrunner. ExplanationOn October 2020, Youtuber H*ck No posted this meme video where he portrays himself as a speedrunner trying to finish the Card Swipe task as soon as possible. The mixture of serially escalating things asked from him by the game and the purposefully compressed audio gave much popularity to the video, to the point H*ck no uploaded the lone webcam footage for everyone to make speedrun-centric memes with.
- "Where?" ExplanationAfter a dead body is reported, it's normal to ask where it was found. But sometimes, the entire chat is too preoccupied with asking this, to the chagrin of anyone trying to report this information.
- "The [X]th Impostor" (where [X] is [impostors present in the current game]+1) ExplanationPlayers that consistently make bad calls and impede other players will often be referred to as "the third Impostor" or "the fourth Impostor" since they cause as much trouble as the actual Impostors.
- [X] playing Among Us. Explanation[X] tends to be a character, celebrity, or group of people being memed, with the rest of those in the chat being associated with them in a work.
[X] kills someone.
[X]: [Y] is the impostor.
[Y]: What.
Chat Member: Ok.
Chat Member: Ok.
Chat Member: Ok.
[Y] was not The Impostor. 1 Impostor remains. - The Friendship wiggle. ExplanationSince players are usually muted and can't chat during gameplay, players attempt to signal other crewmembers by moving left and right very fast to either follow or check on them doing tasks. Of course, they hope that the person they are signaling to is not an Impostor, or that the one doing the signaling is not an Impostor to get someone alone with them...
- The player name "Dad/Mom of 2". ExplanationEquipping your character with the mini-crewmate hat as well as the mini-crewmate pet makes it appear your PC decided on a "take your child to work day" with two of their kids. This is also a common tactic to elicit ironic sympathy from other players.
- Jokes about the Mini-Crewmate re-enacting Mufasa's death in The Lion King or seeking to avenge their parent are also commonplace.
- Among Us × Teletubbies. ExplanationThose familiar with the latter work didn't take long to realize and point out how the Crewmates basically resemble the eponymous television-bellied aliens bisected from the stomach up. Cue jokes about the Crewmates/Impostors indeed being bisected Teletubbies, crossover memes, and many players cosplaying as Teletubbies while wearing balloon or antenna hats.
- Racismo Entre Nosotros. ExplanationIf you play the game with people that speak Spanish, avoid wearing the black color... sometimes it's enough for them to decide to eject you. For real... totally for real!
- O Impostor of the vent, what is your wisdom? ExplanationThis meme is based on a two-panel image between a Red crewmate and a Black impostor. Identical in its premise to the Panzer of the Lake meme, the format gained popularity on Reddit in September 2020.
- Impostors have a SKELETON! ExplanationKilled Crewmates noticeably have a single bone sticking out of their body where a spine ought to be. This has led to players joking that normal Crewmates have literally just a single bone in their entire body and that Impostors have proper skeletons, hence the reason they cannot scan at medbay as their internal anatomy would quickly give them away.
- As Impostors can also have a Mini-Crewmate pet, the Impostor's "baby" has become quite a bit of a Memetic Psychopath, often depicted in fanart as killing other Mini-Crewmates or learning murder tactics from its dad.
- Innersloth putting Among Us 2 on hiatus due to the sudden explosive popularity of the first game has led to memes joking about how Among Us is "suffering from its own success".
- "It was me! Vote me out!" ExplanationBased on one incident where an impostor sets their name as 'me', and a crewmate that caught them kept insisting that the impostor is 'me', which predictably ended badly for the latter.
- "I can't be the impostor! My fat ass can't fit through the vents!" ExplanationThe accused crewmate jokingly defending themselves as not being the impostor because, not to brag, but they have a big butt. Apparently, these types of jokes were a No-Sell for reasons you'd expect.
- Astronauts and their bean babies. ExplanationThere has been a recent trend of fan art depicting the crewmates as looking like realistic astronauts with colored spacesuits... alongside mini crewmates drawn in the game's simplistic style (which has been widely described as "beans"). The obvious contrast has not gone unnoticed, with some even liking the trend because it makes the mini crewmates even more adorable.
- ♪ Thank you. I'll say goodbye soon. ♪ ExplanationFor some reason, the song "Goodbye To A World has become heavily associated with this game; with snippets of it playing in animation videos where someone gets killed by an Impostor after thinking they can trust them, or a mini-crewmate having to watch their "parent" get stabbed.
- "So... who broke it?" ExplanationThe scene from Parks and Recreation where Ron is grilling his coworkers about a broken coffee maker, ending in everyone arguing while Ron admits that he broke it to the camera, has been adapted into a surprising amount of Among Us animations. The "it" in this case is usually a dead Crewmate.
- "If you kill [color], I won't report." ExplanationA common form of retribution against trolls, people with racist or otherwise offensive names, or generally incompetent players: promising that, should the Impostor go after that player, you'll pretend you didn't see anything.
- "Please wear a Party Hat, it's my birthday." ExplanationA sentence sometimes uttered by players when they make or otherwise join a lobby, usually reserved for (obviously) when they're playing on their birthday. Usually, players are happy to oblige to the request, sometimes to the point of ejecting people who didn't actually set themselves to a party hat — and if it happened that the player who disobeyed was actually the Impostor...
- "Are you mad? Are you angry? Are you seething right now? Do you want to beat me up? would you kiss me" ExplanationA screenshot of this taken in an Among Us chatroom has been used to describe the basics of a Slap-Slap-Kiss ship dynamic.
- "Oh, so you're crewmate? Name every task." ExplanationGetting a suspected player to recall what they've done is a tactic to justify suspicion if what they say they've done doesn't match their movements. The similarity to the joke "Oh, so you're a/an [X]? Name every [Y]." didn't go unnoticed.
- Out of available Halloween-themed customization options, the Witch Hat is especially popular, to the point where everyone in the game instead of reporting a body would circle around the victim as a "ritual", usually in Weapons of the Skeld due to the odd symbol on the floor.note Examples here and here (from the same video), albeit not in Weapons.
- "I wouldn't marinate a congresswoman." ExplanationOn October 20, 2020, sitting Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez played the game on Twitch as AOC, and was fed this line when she wondered if a potential Impostor was trying to "marinate" (i.e. spend time with a crewmate as the impostor to lessen suspicion and not get voted out) her up into not voting them out
- From the same game: "Orange is sus. Vote him out."
- Similarly, "I saw Orange faking tasks." ExplanationSpawned as a result of an image claiming to be of Trump filing his taxes.
- "Leat fingies" ExplanationWhen Cr1TiKaL started playing on public lobbies, this nonsensical phrase is the first thing he reads aloud in the chat.
- Lime scored with a Vtuber! ExplanationLime quickly became the color of getting girls when hololive member Polka jokingly proposed to lime after accidentally booting him out. Due to what kind of culture Japanese Idols tends to have, Lime quickly became known as "that one player that won life" due to managing to score a marriage proposal from a V-Tuber.
- METAFORADO. ExplanationThis one comes from the Brazilian community, from a group of popular YouTubers and streamers playing the game. Said group included Vitor "Metaforando" Santos... a YouTuber who's an expressions expert. Despite his lacking knowledge of the game, Metaforando used his ability to read vocal expressions to correctly deduce out Impostors from seemingly nowhere, leading him to a Memetic Badass status and his name becoming synonymous with "figuring out the Impostor without obvious clues".
- Distraction Dance. ExplanationDue to having the same developers, it's popular to depict the Crewmates doing HenryStickminSeries's Distraction Dance, usually started by an Impostor trying to get away with their kill.
- When the imposter is sus! 😳 ExplanationA Photoshop pairing the following caption — flushed emoji included — with an edited photo◊ of Jerma985 that gives him oversized facial features and a Slasher Smile. While the image was originally meant to poke fun at fans' tendency to shove Among Us into unrelated topics, the simultaneously absurd and disturbing nature of the image made it a popular subject of parody, often pairing up the caption with other creepy Photoshops of Jerma, similar edited photos of other streamers (e.g. Vinny), or redraws of the original image, with other variants including pairing other photos of Jerma with variations of the caption (e.g. a picture of a forlorn Jerma◊ with the caption "when the imposter isn't sus").
- Among Drip. ExplanationA popular image made by Artifact Studios to advertise their Among Us-styled shoes. The shockingly amazing quality of the models used for the crewmates caused the image to make its rounds even beyond the Among Us fandom, most inexplicably among Puyo Puyo fans.
- Call an emergency meeting. This drip sus 😂👌
- "Why don't you get among some bitches?" ExplanationA snowclone of the meme featuring the aforementioned text.◊ The bizarre, incredibly forced reference to Among Us in the quote has led to people photoshopping characters from other series into the Among Us shoes to add in similarly mangled references to said characters' series, all while keeping the You Need to Get Laid subtext.
- Because of how memetic the image is, people have started making images with other◊ characters doing similar poses and also wearing similar-looking shoes. Sometimes just even having characters from other media just wearing said shoes.
- The meme got a new variant when it crossed over with the "Air Pod Shotty" meme.
- The sound that's made whenever a match starts.
- The Among Drip song. ExplanationA remix of the "Dead Body Reported" jingle with an original tune, often associated with the above Among Drip meme as well as "Replay" by Iyaz.
- The Among Us musical. ExplanationWhen YouTube announced that it wouldn't be creating a "YouTube Rewind" video for 2020 as a result of the large amount of intense events and tragedies that took place during that year, an amateur theater troupe created a stage rendition of their own 2020 Rewind, featuring a segment based around the sudden Colbert Bump Among Us received that year. The production itself was already heavily mocked for its poor quality and invasive portrayal of real internet celebrities, but the Among Us section received particular focus thanks to out-of-context gifs of it going viral, with many mistaking them as coming from a fan-made musical based entirely around the game, leading to further mockery as a result of it appearing right around the time the game's fanbase started approaching critical mass.
- BABABOEY. ExplanationThe prank catchphrase from the radio show started to worm its way to Among Us thanks to TikTok, where there was often a set of videos where players named themselves as the syllables of the phrase and then appearing together to make up the phrase, and the soundclip being played. The phrase then gets used many times within Among Us to portray various things, but most especially blunders. Even the aforementioned 'Custom Kill Animation' meme also used this voice clip.
- "holy shit among us", "when something is sus" and "Among Us everywhere". ExplanationAfter enough shoehorned references to the game, this gets used sarcastically whenever something has a superficial connection to Among Us, such as when "sus" is used in non-Among Us context or a group of characters are multi-colored, similar to pareidolia.
- "I CAN'T FUCKING TAKE IT ANYMORE!" ExplanationThis (and similar variants) is often used as a caption to jokingly describe any image that even vaguely resembles a crewmate.
- "DON'T THINK IT! DON'T SAY IT!" ExplanationA line borrowed from The Bye Bye Man similar to the example above, it's often said when any image that resembles a crewmate is shown.
- GETOUTOFMYHEADGETOUTOFMYHEADGETOUTOFMYHEAD. ExplanationA Madness Mantra that is commonly used for captioning things that look like crewmates.
- Amogus. ExplanationA deliberate misspelling of "Among Us", usually used to replace dialogue and captions in edits of comics that also have a poorly-drawn version of a Crewmate edited in. It was mainly used to poke fun at neo-Nazi webcomic StoneToss. Ironically, it got so popular that StoneToss eventually acknowledged the meme and started to include Amogus easter eggs in every strip since.
- Sussus Amogus. ExplanationA mix of Amogus, Sus and the name 'Biggus Dickus' from the film Monty Python's Life of Brian. It gets to the point that some Trolls decided to commit vandalism on Wikipedia's entry of Roman Emperor Valentinian II and pretended that his real name was actually 'Sussus Amongus', which got the page locked for protection.
- "STOP POSTING ABOUT AMONG US! I'M TIRED OF SEEING IT!" ExplanationA popular reaction video by Tik Tok user biggayrapper, which consists of a satirical rant about being tired of Among Us memes, especially about things only superficially related to Among Us.
- [Insert original or fan Friday Night Funkin' character] wants you to stop posting about Among Us. ExplanationAs a crossover with Friday Night Funkin', the mentioned rant is remixed into original or fan-made songs, starting with Whitty's first song "Lo-Fight".
- "STOP POSTING ABOUT [insert anything here]!" ExplanationThe rant was later repurposed ironically for different pieces of media, changing the words being said into ones fitting the subject matter, and the "Ding ding ding" part being remixed into a Voice Clip Song using the media's soundtrack. It even extended to the rant itself!
- HONK! ExplanationThe June 15th 2021 update made it so having the "Calibrate Steering" task on the Airship let you honk the the horn; with Word of God via Twitter implying this was supposed to already be a thing but a coding overlay messed it up, as well as plans to disconnect it from the task so everyone can honk it.
- Similar to tricking people into clicking on shock sites, people have began to find ways to trick people into getting greeted with the words "Sus", "Among Us", or "Impostor", or an object shaped like a crewmate, mainly to annoy those who are already saturated with Among Us jokes.
- DONT GOOGLE THE SCIENTIFIC NAME FOR PIG. ExplanationAs explained above, Sus is the scientific genus name for pigs. The text is usually overlaid on top of threatening imagery.
- Don't search Pokémon number 591. ExplanationIt's Amoonguss.
- Do not google translate "up" to Romanian. ExplanationDoing this will translate the word "up" to sus.
- ඞ Explanation The Sinhalese character for a ṅa sound, which became popular to spam or include in one's username in reference to Among Us thanks to its uncanny resemblance to a crewmate.
- Do not google translate "keys cow" in Tagalog. ExplanationThe translation is susi baka (sussy baka).
- Lego Piece 26047.◊ ExplanationA specific LEGO piece that resembles a crewmate.
- Don't Google "25th island of Greece"! Explanation"Amorgos". This meme also led to tourism videos for the island on YouTube getting bombarded with "sus" comments.
- Gregory, do you see the small vent on the floor? Explanation A voiceover where Glamrock Freddy asks Gregory to use a vent and reassures him that he can do it despite it being hard to be sus while constantly cracking up from reading the dialogue, based on a scene from Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach. Glamrock Freddy's official voice actor, Kellen Goff, later recreated the meme.
- Among Us babies. ExplanationOn Tumblr, the phrase "Among Us babies" is taking off, where it usually involves users pretending to raise Crewmates as domesticated animals. It bears similarity to the "clown husbandry" meme, also from Tumblr.
- I'm definitely not an Impostor, if I was, then I wouldn't be one cause I'm not one. ExplanationThe first few lyrics of "Imposter Imperceptible" by NerdOut ft. JT Music. Often used as part of humorous mashups.
- Crewmate falls off the Squid Game glass bridge / "among us dies". ExplanationA clip from this video by ZAMination, where various characters compete in the glass bridge game from Squid Game. Among them is a Crewmate, who monologues to itself using the words "among us" before deciding to jump down to his death. The scene quickly spawned numerous edits, usually adding a sound to the Crewmate's impact upon falling.
- Crying anime eyes look like Among Us. ExplanationSomeone pointed out that the way the eyes are drawn when an anime character is crying makes it look like a crewmate wearing white shoes. While many people were upset that they can now no longer unsee it, some joined in on the joke and began deliberately making crying eyes look like Among Us. Even the official Among Us twitter account got into the gig.
- 'Amongi' as a plural term of the characters rather 'crewmates'.
- Among Us Dumpy/Twerk. ExplanationAn animated gif of the Yellow Crewmate shaking its ass in front of the camera, rotoscoped from a similar scene in Open Season, became a popular source of viral memes either using recolors of it as a tile to make animated mosaics or editing it to depict other characters.
- Shadow of the Amogus, now available on the PyaSiatoin 22!
