Memes / The Emoji Movie

• Referring to something as "X: The Movie" or "The X Movie" in response to the movie's title; often a popular fad, such as fidget spinners, or simply "The Movie: The Movie" if you want to take it to its logical conclusion.
  • In a similar vein, due to this movie's terribleness, it became popular to compare it to other widely-hated media; for instance, one negative review of The Snowman (2017) referred to it as "The Emoji Movie of serial-killer thrillers", many people referred to Teen Titans Go! To the Movies as "The Emoji Movie of 2018" prior to its release (where it ended being surprisingly well-received) and one YouTube commenter on a video about Star Wars Battlefront II (2017)'s infamous lootboxes referred to the game as "The Emoji Movie of video games".
• Similar to many, many, many other films and series, trailers for the movie have gotten into the mix of "X but..." video edits. Specifically, a common theme is "The Emoji Movie, but every terrible joke..."
• More than one person noted how Jailbreak looks almost exactly like Chloe Price. Others compared Jailbreak to Wyldstyle (who she is more similar to in terms of personality and appearance) and Vanellope Von Schweetz, right down to secretly being a princess.
• Jacksfilms managed to foster an ironic fandom for the movie, to the point where it could be argued that he did a better job of selling the movie than the marketing itself ever did. So much so that Sony invited him to the film's world premiere!
• Dawn of the Final Day: 24 Hours Remain◊^Explanation  The absolutely volcanic levels of visceral hatred on the Internet for this movie (and its existence being treated as an apocalyptic-level event) was taken to its logical conclusion with a series of Majora's Mask-style posters featuring characters from the movie distributed widely around the Internet in the final week leading up to the film's release.
• "🚫"^Explanation Rotten Tomatoes' critical consensus for the movie is literally just the "no symbol" emoji.
  • The film's infamous initial 0% rating on the site was gleefully brought up and mocked, and when the very few positive reviews came in (bringing it up to a marginally less-embarrassing 7%), quite a few people mocked those same critics as having very low standards or else being on crack while they watched the movie.
• Mentioning this movie and AniMat in the same sentence.^Explanation AniMat is one of the film's (and by extension the studio's) greatest detractors, and he did a particularly scathing review of the film when it was finally released.
• "JUSTICE FOR THE SAILORMAN!"^Explanation This particular phrase became the battle cry of sorts among Popeye fans furious that Genndy Tartakovsky's film was supposedly cancelled in favor of this movie, and it served as their ecstatic reactions in response to its atrocious critical ratings.
• Pictures of Popeye◊ and Captain Underpants◊ punching out Gene.
• "Don't worry, it's illegal malware and this app is secure!"^Explanation  A particularly ludicrous example of product placement, referring to a scene where Jailbreak speaks this line after they enter Dropbox, which in this film is portrayed as a Heaven-like safe zone.
• Remember that you can just delete trolls.^Explanation As mentioned under the Artistic License section, this movie seems to be under the impression that trolls are malware and not people trying to offend others on the Internet.
• When it was revealed that police were on the lookout for a man caught pleasuring himself during a screening of the movie, it quickly went viral, along with many jokes about "At least one person in that theater was enjoying himself during the movie."
• "He's making the wrong face!"^Explanation This line that kickstarts the plot has become a popular catchphrase in memes and remix videos.
• "IT'S THE SAME FUCKING THING!"^Explanation  People were not happy when the plot twist that Jailbreak is secretly a princess was revealed, as it is widely considered to be an incredibly blatant Follow the Leader of Wreck-It Ralph.
• The Emoji Movie caused Chris Pratt's divorce.^Explanation  Chris Pratt played Emmet in The LEGO Movie and was married to Anna Faris, who played Jailbreak - a character who was widely accused of ripping off Wyldstyle, Emmet's love interest. When Pratt and Faris filed for divorce only a few weeks after this movie's release, many fans with a dark sense of humor joked that either the extremely vitriolic hatred for this movie for blatantly ripping off The LEGO Movie was responsible for the couple's divorce or even Pratt saw how much of a rip-off her movie was to his that he divorced her on the spot.
• "They fucking killed her."^Explanation  During the Just Dance sequence, Gene's malfunction causes the app, along with Hi-5 and Akiko Glitter, to be deleted and taken to the trash can. When Gene and Jailbreak return to the trash can, they rescue Hi-5... and walk right by Akiko, despite the fact that she is clearly trapped in a horrible Fate Worse than Death, something that Gene is responsible for, and there's nothing to indicate that Gene and Jailbreak couldn't have saved her. This was widely derided online as shockingly dark and callous for such a lighthearted movie.
• “Wow. What a visual treat. And I don’t even need a remote!”^Explanation  Mel Meh’s reaction to YouTube, particularly Piko-Taro's "Pen Pineapple Apple Pen" .
• Using the poop emoji to sum up the film's overall quality became quite popular in both critical and audience reviews of the film, given that the film happens to feature said emoji.
• Some fans of Wreck-It Ralph, Inside Out and The LEGO Movie have dubbed the film "the most expensive mockbuster ever made" or "the first theatrically-released mockbuster ever made" and other variations of such.^Explanation Due to The Emoji Movie blatantly ripping off the three former films (particularly The LEGO Movie's title).
• The dark nature of life in Textopolis, where phone-users are all-powerful, unknowable overlords willing to destroy the entire Emoji civilization over a minor visual glitch and cannot be conquered, only appeased, led some people to sarcastically refer to the movie as the most faithful Hollywood H. P. Lovecraft adaptation ever.
• Comparing the film to cancer became very popular in the trailers' comments sections on YouTube, with special mention going to one which mocked the film's tagline of "The Emoji Movie: Express Yourself": "The Cancer Movie: Kill Yourself".
• When it was announced that this film would be the first one screened by Saudia Arabian cinemas in 35 years, many people suggested that this meant they were trying to ensure it would be another 35 years until the next one was screened.
• Following the release of the wildly-disliked trailers for Teen Titans Go! To the Movies, comparisons to this movie became very popular, due to both being movies that no one asked for, with comments being made along the lines of that movie going to be "The Emoji Movie of 2018", "The Emoji Movie 2" or "worse than The Emoji Movie". This died down after the Go! movie turned out a lot better than anyone expected.
  • Similarly, following his starring in Peter Rabbit and the announcement that he was also playing a character in Go! To the Movies (whose scene in the teaser is a long fart joke), many people have joked online that James Corden suffers from being typecast as "that guy who's not funny in shitty kids' movies."
• FOUR GOLDEN RAZZIES.^Explanation  The film swept the 38th Golden Raspberry Awards, aka the parodic "awards ceremony" celebrating the very worst movies of 2017, winning every category it was nominated in (Worst Picture, Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, and Worst Screen Combo). Not only that, but it was the first animated film ever to be nominated in any of those categories. The level of glee from most Internet users upon learning this, all of whom had bashed the film ever since it was announced right, left and center, could barely be contained. Suffice to say, Sony won't be hearing the last of this one any time soon, especially since they actually submitted it for Oscar consideration.
• Comparing the scene where everything on the phone starts to get deleted to a similar, infamous scene in Avengers: Infinity War.
• Love Live! Sunshine!! fans jokingly pointed out Addie's design for having a resemblance to Dia Kurosawa sans the hair clips.
• "And it SUUUUUUUUUUCKED!" ^Explanation The opening for Chris Stuckmann's review of the movie ended with this statement, which acted as a very effective Jump Scare. Many viewers were quick to point out that it makes for a very quick review of the film.
• Look who just sent me a text^Explaination The scene from the trailer where Alex receives a text from Addie and sends an emoji as a reply; the Gene emoji that Addie is confused by is replaced with another meme.

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