Memes / Fallout

Insert Drone of Dread here.

Entire Series

• "War. War never changes."^ExplanationThe Arc Words for the entire Fallout series, originally a (mis)quotation from Ulysses S. Grant (not the Ulysses from Fallout: New Vegas).
• Editing scenes where someone is hit to use V.A.T.S.^ExplanationThe V.A.T.S. system allows players to freeze time (Fallout 3 and New Vegas) or enter Bullet Time (Fallout 4 and 76) and target certain body parts for attacks in sequence, which means it lends itself to all sorts of scenarios where someone is injured in a specific area.
• Speech checks. ^ExplanationIn a similar vein to the above, it's rather popular to edit dialogue scenes from various shows and movies to have characters passing or failing checks to their speech and other skills. It naturally became even more popular with the launch of the TV show in 2024.
• "It just works" ^Explanation A line from Todd Howard during the Fallout 4 demo at E3 2015. Considering what Bethesda Game Studios' games have always been infamous for, the line is often quoted in a tongue-in-cheek manner whenever a bug rears its ugly head. It even became the title of a song/musical Take That! by The Chalkeaters concerning Bethesda and Howard.

Fallout 2

• Sergeant Arch Dornan in his entirety.^explanationSergeant Dornan is what happens when you combine Drill Sergeant Nasty with Chewing the Scenery. The first thing he does upon seeing you is chew you out at the top of his lungs for showing up to guard duty without any power armor, and he just goes even more ballistic from there. Needless to say, classic Fallout fans (especially Enclave supporters) love him.
• "Enclave here! Why isn't your video feed working?"^ExplanationMentioned by the Enclave communications officer if the Chosen One connects to the PoseidoNet at the Poseidon Energy Oil Rig.
  • "I should kick your fucking ass!" ^ExplanationAnother of his lines, usually used in reaction image format to react to someone posting something distasteful.
• "Your ride's over, mutie. Time to die."^ExplanationFrank Horrigan's Pre Ass Kicking Oneliner during the final battle in Fallout 2.
  • Frank Horrigan in general has a well-earned reputation as a Memetic Badass.

Fallout 3

• Tunnel Snakes RULE!^ExplanationEarly on in Vault 101, the young Lone Wanderer happens upon Butch and his cronies picking on Amata. When asked, Paul Hannon says this, and elaborates below. Also led to this Voice Clip Song.
  • "Why? Because we're Tunnel Snakes! And we rule!"
  • "Hey Amata, wanna see a real Tunnel Snake?"
• There's nothing funny about...THE EAGLE CLAW!^ExplanationIn the Show Within a Show "The Adventures of Herbert 'Daring' Dashwood", Hypercompetent Sidekick Argyle ends up killing slaver leader Penelope Chase by ripping her heart out while shouting his attack. Justified given it's a radio show.
• HEY EVERYBODY DID THE NEWS GET AROUND ABOUT A GUY NAMED BUTCHER PETE?^ExplanationOne of the songs on Galaxy News Radio is the catchy "Butcher Pete", which features lyrics speaking about a "butcher" chopping women's "meat", but is actually about a ladykiller.
  • HE'S HACKIN' AND WHACKIN' AND SMACKIN!
• COMMUNISM IS THE VERY DEFINITION OF FAILURE!/INITIATING DIRECTIVE #7395: DESTROY. ALL. COMMUNISTS!^ExplanationLiberty Prime is a very popular character in the game due to his Patriotic Fervor and memorable lines.
  • PROBABILITY OF MISSION HINDRANCE, ZERO PERCENT!!!!
  • DEMOCRACY IS NON-NEGOTIABLE!!!
• YOU ARE OVER-ENCUMBERED AND CANNOT RUN! YOU ARE OVER-ENCUMBERED AND CANNOT RUN! YOU ARE OVER-ENCUMBERED AND CANNOT RUN! YOU ARE OVER-ENCUMBERED AND CANNOT RUN! YOU ARE OVER-ENCUMBERED AND CANNOT RUN! YOU ARE OVER-ENCUMBERED AND CANNOT RUN! YOU ARE OVER-ENCUMBERED AND CANNOT RUN! YOU ARE OVER-ENCUMBERED AND CANNOT RUN! YOU ARE OVER-ENCUMBERED AND CANNOT RUN!^ExplanationFallout is a game that lives and breathes on salvaging scrap from the wasteland. Unfortunately, your character can only carry as much as his/her strength allows before they become overloaded and slow. The sheer amount of goodies to be found and sold means that this tends to happen quite a bit. This is less of an issue in New Vegas since the "Long Haul" perk allows the player to fast travel while over-encumbered.
• друг.^ExplanationTechnically pronounced as "Droog" (friend in Russian), Apyr is a Fan Nickname for a Deathclaw featured in a photoshopped image that originated in Imgur (pictured above). Later, a video was made based off from the "Out of your friends which are you" meme where the said Deathclaw was featured while accompanied by a loud, droning noise playing in the background.
• "I'm sorry, my companion, but no. We all have our own destinies, and yours culminates here. I would not rob you of that." ^{Explanation (SPOILERS)}The dialogue Fawkes give in response to the player asking him to activate Project Purity, despite the fact that he's immune to radiation and thus can go there without anyone dying. While this was retconned with the Broken Steel DLC with him accepting your request, it still received a lot of mockery for audacity of Fawkes for saying that, coming across as valuing Honor Before Reason at best and a lazy Jerkass at worst. As a result, this line of dialogue has been used in scenarios where the person asking the question◊ would end up in a bad situation if the recipient rejects them◊.

Fallout: New Vegas

• One For My Baby^ExplanationA meme spawned from Boone's recruitment mission due to its memorability and premise, where images of characters aiming their rifles from a high vantage point would have the quest name superimposed over them. Bonus points if the vantage point actually looks like a dinosaur.
• "Nobody's dick that long. Not even "Long Dick" Johnson, and he had a fucking long dick. Thus the name. "^Explanation Cass' off-color explanation of the NCR's main problems.
• "An angry mailman"/ "The most dangerous being in the Mojave is a mailman." ^ExplanationDue to the fact that a simple Courier is potentially the most dangerous person in the Mojave, initially motivated to get revenge on Benny, then is often said that the Courier is a "very angry Mailman."
• Merely pretending.^ExplanationIn one sidequest, some Freeside thugs are hired to "attack" so a conman can "defend" you, and they get "killed". Due to a bug, they can actually explode into meaty chunks, but inspecting the gibs will still yield the message "A quick study of the body reveals that the thug is still alive, and merely pretending to be dead". Now the phrase is thrown around when a character dies in a particularly brutal fashion.
• Easy Pete.^ExplanationThe first NPC other than Doc Mitchell and Victor you encounter, he's often the first person that Evil Karma Let's Play streamers kill. This has gained him a Memetic Badass reputation that slowly mutated until every aspect of him was a meme.
  • Difficult Jack/Hardcore Pete.^ExplanationAfter Easy Pete became a Memetic Badass among fans on Tumblr, they proposed that he must have a polar opposite named "Difficult Jack" who keeps his massive power in check. It becomes Hilarious in Hindsight where a mod fittingly known as "Hardcore Pete" was created, in which turns him into a powerful companion. There is also the "Difficulty-dependent Pete" mod, which renames the "Easy" in Easy Pete to match your currently-selected difficulty, resulting in such horrors as Difficult Pete.
  • "BASTARD!" ^ExplanationEasy Pete yells this upon becoming hostile or if the player injures him (either on purpose or by accident). Particularly infamous is Jerma985's Easy Pete Migration, where he spawned several clones of Pete and observed them travel all the way back to Goodsprings; when Jerma punched one of the Petes, all of them turned on him, shouting "BASTARD!" in unison before filling him with bullets.
  • Fallout: New Glasgow^ExplanationYoutuber MarioInATopHat made an edit of Limmy's Show's "It's shut" skit, overlaying it with "Big Iron" and making the numerous zoom-ins of Limmy look like V.A.T.S. targeting; when the "player" finally reaches the tower, they unlock it with console commands and head inside, only to be mobbed by an army of Easy Petes. The video quickly gained popularity with both fandoms, as the sheer absurdity and random humor of the short manages retain the feel of the original Limmy short, while also giving it the feel of some sort of lost Fallout: New Vegas gameplay clip. Several viewers have also pointed out that the city of Glasgow is doing itself no favors, making the entire city look like a wasteland itself due to the fact that Limmy is the only one ever seen on camera.
• "Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter."^ExplanationA common saying among NCR troopers. You can give them one at the end of "Lonesome Road", if you choose to fire the nuclear missile on the NCR, specifically Long 15.
  • "Ave, true to Caesar." ^Explanation The Legion equivalent.
• PLAY THE GUITAAAAR...PLAY IT AGAAAAIN... MY JOHNNYYYY...^Explanation From "Johnny Guitar", one of the songs that plays on the Mojave Music Radio station. It gained its memetic status in the community due to an infamous bug that makes it, along with "Big Iron", play almost constantly on that station.
• Everything related to "Big Iron". ^Explanation As mentioned above, the sheer frequency with which this song plays on the in-game radio (along with how fitting to the story and aesthetics it is, being basically all Wild West archetypes condensed into a single song) made "Big Iron" become almost synonymous with New Vegas itself and even the Western genre in general, to the point where any mentions of the game or even any unrelated thing that's remotely cowboy-like leads to a fan making references to/posting lyrics from the song. Even the real life album, Marty Robbins' Big Iron, had its cover become emblematic and a very popular target for edits and memes related to New Vegas.
• "Please assume the position."^ExplanationOne of the sidequests involved finding a Sexbot named Fisto (a repurposed Protectron) for a Freeside casino.
• "We can't expect God to do all the work."^ExplanationA quote by Joshua Graham, usually paired with a picture of him holding his trademark pistol ready to use it. The line in context meant that he would pray for others' safety but knew he had to keep them safe himself, but it's almost always used to imply a whole lot of killing should be happening.
  • “I survived because the fire inside me burned brighter than the fire around me.”^ExplanationBy far Joshua Grahams’s most famous line, and one of the most well-known lines in the entire game, describing how he survived being set on fire and thrown into the Grand Canyon. It’s somewhat infamous for being often mistaken for some kind of real religious statement, rather than a line from a video game.
• "Degenerates like you belong on a cross."^ExplanationA Legionnaire threat, often used to (jokingly) attack others' tastes in media and/or engage in kinkshaming.
  • "The Caesar has marked you for death, and the Legion obeys! Ready yourself for battle!" ^ExplanationOne of the Legion assassins says this before attacking the Courier if his/her reputation with the said faction is set to either "Shunned" or "Villified". This resulted in a minor Green Screen exploitable meme where a player gets caught for watching a certain questionable video from his Pip-Boy Readius only to get decimated by an assassin armed with a handgun.
• “Truth is, the game was rigged from the start.”^ExplanationBenny’s Pre-Mortem One-Liner right before he shoots you in the intro. Used in numerous situations to convey betrayal of some sort.
  • "What in the goddamn?!"^ExplanationBenny’s understandably shocked response when the Courier confronts him in New Vegas, and widely considered one of his best lines.
• [Sex Options] ^note One person on a Facebook Fallout shitposting group posted a picture of the trade interface of his game asking for advice. He had a sex mod on which manifested in his inventory as a "[Sex Options]" item. It naturally became memed to no end.
• “HA HA HA I WASH MY BONE, WESSIBE.” ^note  there is a friendly Gentle Giant super mutant named Mean Sunovabitch who had his tongue cut out. Apparently no one told his voice actor this at first, so thanks to the straight delivery his lines sound absolutely bizarre (for reference the line above is supposed to be him saying “I watch my town, Westside” sans tongue)
• Green Screen Nephi ^ExplanationExploring Dummied Out content reveals that the Fiend leaders besides Motor-Runner actually have a set of voiced dialogue and completed conversation clips. While everyone has their moments, Nephi takes the cake for being the most surreal and for how dull his delivery is, specifically his end quote "Get fucked". One certain user acknowledged this and produced various greenscreens of the aforementioned quote and many other variations.
• OK Boomer ^note A meme not from New Vegas itself (it serves as a catchphrase used to dismiss or mock attitudes stereotypically attributed to the baby boomer generation), but since the game's main quest features a faction named "the Boomers"... There's even a mod that adds it as a dialogue option.
• "YEEEEAH! WHO WON THE LOTTERY? I DID!"^ExplanationWhen entering the town of Nipton, the Powder Ganger Oliver Swanick approaches the player boasting of having just won the lottery, becoming one of only two of the survivors of the Legion's massacre of the town. He then proceeds to run directly into a radscorpion nest after the conversation, that is if the player doesn't kill him first.
• President Kimball wants you to pay your taxes^ExplanationA short video of the courier failing The House Always Wins Part VII where he attacked President Aaron Kimball during his speech for the reason that he tried to make the courier pay taxes, in which Mr. House understood his frustration. Kimball labelled by the fanbase as an ambitious taxmonger who will not stop until every last citizen of NCR paid their taxes. Doesn't help that in the NCR related endings, several establishment were struggling due to the high amount of taxes they had to pay.
• "Armed with a wide array of improvised explosives and stolen weapons, the Vault 19 Powder Gang tormented the Mojave Wasteland for years..."^ExplanationA snippet of one of the ending slides should you choose not to complete the quest "Why Can't We Be Friends?" or not discovering Vault 19 during your playthrough. The ending slide caught many players by surprise, newcomers and veterans alike, because chances are you haven't even discovered the questline yet, nor you even acknowledge the existence of Vault 19 in Mojave at all, hence the reason why players keep getting this ending slides even if they obliterated the Powder Gangers in NCRCF. Even the foreshadowing from the other Powder Ganger members gave you doesn't exactly tell you where Samuel Cooke and his cohorts went, making it harder to discover.
• "My brother died at Hoover Dam! You're desecrating a war memorial!" ^ExplanationIf you attack the Hoover Dam memorial, a nearby NCR soldier accosts you for your actions. The soldier's tenacity (he will follow you across the game world until he can initiate dialogue) and the potential responses (choosing "You're a little bitch, and your brother was too." will turn him instantly hostile) have lead to him and the war memorial becoming a meme of sorts. Amusingly, since the camera used for "Classic Inspiration" is coded in the game as a weapon, taking a photo of the memorial also elicits this reaction.
  • Being chased by Private Kowalski. ^ExplanationPrivate Kowalski, the above-mentioned NCR soldier, will immediately and relentlessly pursue the Courier the moment they deface the Hoover Dam memorial, chasing them across the entire Mojave to chew them out. It's gotten to the point where people have done challenge runs where they attempt to beat the game while evading Kowalski, as seen here. Kowalski's behavior is shared with other NPCs, and they've also received similar challenges.
• "And so the Courier who cheated death in the cemetery outside Goodsprings, cheated death once again, and the Mojave wasteland was forever changed" ^ExplanationThe first line from the ending slideshow, as narrated by Ron Perlman. It's become a meme to overlay the subtitles and sepia tint of this specific slide over random pictures to create surreal shitposts.
• Pregnant Sunny Smiles / OffSpring. ^{Explanation (Warning, Not Safe For Life)}One fetish Game Mod involving Sunny Smiles becoming a companion and also being extremely pregnant has become extremely infamous, especially since the mod involves Sunny Smiles giving birth to small Super Mutant babies wrapped up in a blanket who are perfectly still objects that can be picked up and sold. The cherry on top is how the birth is narrated with creepy overly descriptive notifications in the upper left corner of the screen that somehow insist on calling her babies "OffSpring".
• Using the NCR Veteran Ranger to represent the Courier. ^Explanation The image of an NCR Veteran Ranger is often used to represent the Courier, due to many people assuming is the same character, due to the fact that the Ranger is on the cover, this includes Dead Money memes where is impossible for the Courier to use Ranger Gear, since in this dlc, the Courier loses all the items at the start.
• [Speech 100] "That's NOT how FUCKING DIALECTICS works you STUPID CUCK!" ^ExplanationA memetic rant showing the Courier reaching their Rage Breaking Point in response to having to listen to Caesar's notoriously bad interpretation of Hegel's Dialectics.
• "The BEAR and the BULL..." ^ExplanationUlysses is infamous for his incredibly long-winded rants and manner of speaking. He almost always refers to the NCR and the Legion as their respective animals, a Bear for the NCR and a Bull for Caesar's Legion; and Ulysses refers to them a lot. Some people outright dislike Lonesome Road solely because they think Ulysses talks too much, and often will derogatorily boil down his entire character to "Bear Bull Bear Bull Bear Bull"
• The Drowned Man ^ExplanationDuring the Independent ending, the Courier can have Yes Man kill General Oliver by throwing him off the Hoover Dam. Some people theorize that Oliver actually survived the fall and became a symbolic boogeyman for the Courier and the people of New Vegas, much like Joshua Graham (aka The Burned Man) was one for Caesar and his Legion.

Fallout 4

• There are over a thousand names recorded for your PC. Yes, even names like "Fuckface". People had a field day with that one.
• The very mention of the Sole Survivor (both male and female) having an amazing ass has become this thanks to both the trailers and box art providing the playerbase with multiple gratuitous ass shots of the Sole Survivor in form-fitting Vault Jumpsuits.^note You might even say that they have "America's Ass". Funnily enough, this becomes especially fitting for Nate due to him being an American soldier frozen just like Steve Rogers.
  • Additionally, due to the face sculpting feature being amazingly precise and varied, when 4 first came out many people made (and continue to make) the player character resemble known celebrities in real life and shared the results with their friends. This extends even to fictional characters, such as this completely accurate interpretation (with some intensive code meddling) of Saitama.
• HATE NEWSPAPERS.^ExplanationOne of the dialogue options in a scene in the trailers after it was revealed that dialogue was changed to be a wheel, ala Mass Effect. It quickly gained infamy and has been used to make fun of the way the new dialogue system shortens choices to a few words.
  • SUPPORT NEWS.^ExplanationAnother of the choices alongside "HATE NEWSPAPERS."
  • SARCASTIC.^ExplanationMost conversations will have at least one dialog option labeled this, which always lead to a typically hilarious remark. Though since the game doesn't show you what you'll actually say, picking "sarcastic" can range from a funny snarky joke to a vicious insult.
    • "I'm here to pick up an order. Two large pepperoni and a calzone. Name is 'Fuck You'." ^ExplanationWhen confronting the Courser whose Courser Chip is needed in order to infiltrate the Institute, this comes up when you select the sarcastic option. Said line was chosen to be the favorite by both the male and female voice actors for the Sole Survivor.
• "And here I was eye-fucking that duct tape on Sturges' belt for 10 hours."^ExplanationA very popular (as in, upwards of 1100 upvotes) comment on Reddit when someone posted a solution to the lack of adhesive.
• WE FOUND OUT, YES WE DID! WE FOUND OUT, SHE COULDN'T KEEP IT HID! WE FOUND OUT, NOW WE KNOW! THAT GRANDMA PLAYS THE NUMBERS!^ExplanationA song that plays on Diamond City Radio, "Grandma Plays the Numbers", a swing song about the singer discovering his grandma plays the "Numbers Game", a then-illegal gambling game. Gained its memetic status for, much like "Butcher Pete" before it, its incredibly catchy and repetitive chorus.
• "Another settlement needs your help." ^ExplanationPreston Garvey says this (though not really) right before issuing radiant quests. The early days of the game had a tendency to immediately activate another the moment you turned in the previous one, so 99% of Preston's dialog was made up of this single line.
  • "At least it's not raining." ^Explanation One of Preston's idle lines.
  • "Babe." ^Explanation If you're in a relationship with Preston, he calls you this regardless of gender, and he calls you it often.
  • Relatedly, Preston's constant supplying of radiant quests is seen as such an annoyance that numerous players find many amusing and creative ways to imprison or exile him in an effort to escape his ceaseless barrage of timed quests. While a patch did later fix Preston's incessant quest giving, the poor guy is never going to live it down.
• Popular costume mods include:
  • Preston Garvey dressed as Woody, paired with Paladin Danse's armor modded to look like Buzz Lightyear.
  • Cait in N7 armor, as Cait looks like the default Female!Commander Shepard from Mass Effect 3.
• Generally speaking, there's been a◊ lot◊ of humor milked from claiming that the real reason for why companions like Cait, Paladin Danse, and Piper in particular have their affinity improve from the Sole Survivor doing innocuous things like unlocking safes is a lot less innocent than first thought.
• Paladin Danse:
  • Joking that Danse is voiced by George Clooney due to the remarkable resemblance between Danse's character model and Clooney along with their similar-sounding voices.
  • Danse Danse Revolution!!
  • "Maybe it's Chinese." ^Explanation Danse's comment on Takahashi, the protectron who can only speak one phrase in Japanese and serves noodles in Diamond City. Danse gets suspicious.
  • Buzz Lightyear. ^ExplanationLike Buzz, Danse is a no-nonsense elite soldier who doesn't realize that he's a toy/Synth. It doesn’t help that his voice actor (Peter Jessop) uses a certain tone that can sound an awful lot like Tim Allen at times.
  • Danse being described as "Ass Victoriam"/"Mr. Commonwealth 2287".^ExplanationIn part due to his 24-Hour Armor, Danse wasn't initially a popular candidate for being romanced. This changed when a lot more players finally reached "Blind Betrayal," where Danse actually does step out of his Power Armor... showing off his attractive Heroic Build in a form-fitting Power Armor Jumpsuit along with his thick black hair. Suffice to say, some players have semi-jokingly noted that they were more interested in admiring Danse's lovely backside than paying attention to his trial with Elder Maxson, and ever since then talking about how handsome Danse is and how much of a shame it is that he's almost constantly in Power Armor has become a minor meme in the fandom.
• "Aaannd, as if that wasn't enough..." ^Explanation When you meet up with Desdemona for the first time, she gets Deacon to tell her who the Sole Survivor is, and the video demonstrates all of the comments Deacon can make. This quote comes up often if you've covered the Commonwealth quite a bit.
• Would you die for your fellow man, even if he were a synth?^ExplanationA question Desdemona asks you during the start of the Railroad questline. Jokes about synths in general are pretty common, thanks to the large role they play in the plot.
  • Coming off of the above, there's "You know who would do/say ______? A synth!"^ExplanationVarious Wastelanders will accuse others of being Synths due to often highly dubious reasons. Easily the most noteworthy is a Diamond City Guard claiming that his girlfriend leaving the cap off of her toothpaste is a sign that she's a Synth.
• There is an unwritten meme that seems to be carried over from New Vegas; every time a person says "X, X never changes", another person will respond with: "But Y do, through the roads they walk."
• Due to the fact the Sole Survivor's son Shaun tends to be ignored completely by the players in the beginning of the game due to the popularity of settlements, many have said that Dogmeat makes a better son than Shaun.
• You can make your character wear a variety of fedoras and trilby hats, some of which can actually increase your Charisma and thus, help you with romancing the ladies. Given the fact that in real life, these hats are mostly the object of mockery in modern times and commonly associated with Straw Loser types (such as Incels, Casanova Wannabes, Redditors), some fans are having a ball with that.
• "Nick Valentine: part time detective, full time savage."^ExplanationThis comes from Nick Valentine's hilariously snarky retorts for whenever he's insulted by bigoted Wastelanders.
• VIP Art^ExplanationA random encounter that involves two identical men, both named Art, with one holding the other at gunpoint and both trying to convince you that the other is a synth trying to kill and replace the real Art. The Art held hostage is the synth. The meme comes from the fact this encounter is repeatable, even if both Arts are killed the first time, and so people soon went with the idea that the "human" Art is in fact a Physical God always Back from the Dead, and the Institute is constantly churning out synth doubles in vain attempts to take his place.
• "Garrus is everywhere."^ExplanationThe surprisingly high amount of side characters voiced by Brandon Keener (best known for voicing the fan-favorite companion Garrus Vakarian in the Mass Effect franchise) has led to this expression propping up in the fanbase.
• Describing the Far Harbor DLC only as "FAH HAHBAH," with it being meant to invoke the comically exaggerated Boston accent the Sole Survivor can assume in the final part of the DLC's main questline.
• In Nuka-World, there's a location called Dry Rock's Gulch. Greeting you there is a Protectron called Sheriff Eagle. His line is pretty normal... then someone on the YouTube comment section made it a lot better.
  Sheriff Eagle: Howdy partners! Welcome to Dry Rock Gulch, where it's always high noon!
  McCree: (Deep Breathing)
• "I'm gonna stop you right there."^Explanation An image of the Vault-Tec Sales Representative saying the line, commonly used as either a reaction image or a snowclone. It should be noted that he never actually says this in-game.
• [Everyone disliked that.] ^ExplanationA screenshot of this notification◊ from the game when a player character's actions offends two or more companions has been circulating the Internet as a reaction image to point out mass disapproval.
  • [Everyone liked that.] ^Explanation A twist to react to something more positive.
  • [Strong hated that.]. ^ExplanationThe companion Strong has a negative reaction and loses affinity to a lot of very common actions including lockpicking, passing Charisma checks, heal Dogmeat, wear power armor, modify weapons, and more... which virtually every player does frequently, making it just feel like he hates everything you do. Plus him having a negative reaction to some rather random things, such as disliking speaking as the Silver Shroud and hating completing the quest "Out in Left Field".
• Due to Emil Paguliarulo stating that Nate was present in the Annexation of Canada (before backtracking it), more than a few memes have popped up making him out to be a psychopath with a genocidal hatred of Canadians, including a "Lore Friendly" mod that makes all the enemies Canada-themed.

Fallout 76

• Fans began joking that this is the 76th entry in the series and asking where are the all other entries, with one of the most popular suggestions being that the Final Pam ruined the missing 71 games.
• People started depicting Soldier: 76 with a Borrowed Catchphrase.
  Soldier: 76: We're all Vault Dwellers now.
• Tabasco sauce/Hot sauce. ^Explanation A Reddit user posted that if the game wasn't a Fallout 3 remaster, he'd drink a bottle of Tabasco sauce. He delivered, and Bethesda took notice. Fan art, shirts, and petitions to reference it in-game followed, and it even expanded outside the fandom, with the user in question being nicknamed "hot sauce man" or "Tabasco guy."
• Due to the game being set in West Virginia, fans of semi-famous West Virginians The McElroy Brothers have demanded references either to the brothers themselves or any of their large family of podcasts in the game.
  • The most common McElroy shows that people want to see references to are Monster Factory, since Justin and Griffin played both Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 on that show, and The Adventure Zone: Amnesty, which is about cryptid hunting in rural West Virginia.
• WEST VIRGINIAAAAA. ^Explanation Fans often quote the chorus for Take Me Home, Country Roads, the song used for the game's teaser when talking about the game. Especially this one particular line, which you can expect to see frequently written in all caps.
• "Sometimes, it doesn't 'just work'." ^ExplanationAnother quote from Todd Howard, deliberately referencing the "It just works" meme as a way of announcing Fallout 76's private beta and acknowledging the notorious bugginess of Bethesda's past games. The fact that the beta was actually just a glorified stress-test for the game's servers and the release version, which came out less than a month later, was just as buggy as ever — if not moreso — led to people mockingly using this attempted apology against Bethesda.
  • "16 times the detail." ^ExplanationThis quote from the E3 2018 presentation seemed to promise significant texture improvements. However, at the time Todd Howard was actually referring to the game's draw distance being significantly improved over Fallout 4 and now being able to provide far more impressive detail from a distance. As the specific turn of phrase was obviously marketing talk meant to imply better graphics and textures, this annoyed many fans when it turned out that textures in the final game typically show up as low-quality.
• "Truth is... bag was nylon from the start."^ExplanationA twist on Benny's iconic line from the intro to Fallout: New Vegas, referring to how one of the promised goodies that would come with buying the "Power Armor" pre-order deluxe edition of the game would be a survivor's bag made from canvas. Many disappointed buyers quickly discovered upon receiving the Power Armor edition that said bag was, in fact, not made of canvas, but rather cheap nylon.
  • Bethesda Softworks' initial response to the uproar over the nylon bags, "We aren't planning on doing anything about it", also quickly became memetic for just how ridiculously bad of an answer it was.
• LIGHT WOOD LAMINATE. LIGHT WOOD LAMINATE. LIGHT WOOD LAMINATE.^ExplanationOne of the special editions of Fallout 76 was the Power Armor Edition, which was supposed to come with a limited-edition Canvas bag. However, upon release, many Power Armor Edition buyers were incensed to find out the bag that came with the game was Nylon, which was much cheaper and less durable than the promised canvas. In the resulting backlash, Bethesda Softworks made a half-hearted apology to everyone that bought the Power Armor Edition, by offering them a free reimbursement of 500 atoms which was the game's premium currency. Not only was this an absurdly low amount of compensation ($5.00 when converted from atoms to real dollars, when the Power Armor Edition itself cost upwards of $200.00), but, as mocked by the Internet Historian, it was barely enough to buy Light Wood Laminate from the Shop.
• “Tell me lies, Tell me sweet little lies”^ExplanationDue to all the misleading statements and missteps above, this 1988 Christie McVie song shot back into the spotlight with many using it to mock Todd Howard and Bethesda Softworks.
• "This is GRRRAAAAAFTON's Mayor!" ^Explanation Following in the infamous footsteps of Preston Garvey, the Grafton Mayor has quickly become notorious for always chiming in through the Pip-Boy to offer one of his daily quests as soon as you step just one foot in the Toxic Valley region. Comparisons between him and Preston's "A settlement needs your help!" arose quickly.
  • The curator at Prickett's Fort has excavated a civil war soldier's remains. He's asked that I give the body a burial in Philippi Battlefield Cemetery. ^Explanation Continuing from above, the most common quest the Grafton Mayor gives you is one where a curator at Prickett's Fort excavated a civil war soldier's remains and asks you to give it a burial at Philippi Battlefield Cemetery. The above quote comes from the Pip-Boy's description for the quest, which became a copypasta in light of the Grafton Mayor's notoriety.

Fallout (2024)

• Assigning stats and traits to the cast.^ExplanationWhile the show doesn't use the SPECIAL system (obviously, it isn't a video game), many fans of the series have tried to guess each character's traits and SPECIAL stats. For example, it's frequently joked that Maximus has absolutely no Charisma but high Endurance, the Ghoul has tons of Endurance and Luck, and Lucy has high Intelligence, but very little Charisma.
• "Thou shalt get sidetracked by bullshit every goddamn time."^ExplanationThe Ghoul says this to Lucy when she tries to remind him of the Golden Rule. This line became particularly beloved in the fanbase because it pretty much sums up the experience of the Fallout series perfectly because of just how much extra stuff on the side is added to each entry.
• "You wanna make my cock explode?"^ExplanationMaximus is a character that many fans believe has absolutely no way with words whatsoever, culminating in this line when he's trying to ask Lucy if she wants to have sex. The out-of-left-field nature of the line, as well as the aforementioned meme about Maximus having no Charisma, made it a fan-favorite.

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