Insert your own embarrassing 13-year-old fantasies here.
"This film takes place less than a year after the September 11 terrorist attacks. I bring this up because it radically altered the culture of the time in ways that make this movie feel exceptionally ignorant of the time."
- When the trailer first came out, fans were comparing Mei's situation to the Hulk, especially since how she turns into a red panda is similar to how Bruce turns into the Hulk (the difference being she turns into the form through excitement or stress, instead of anger like Bruce, though stress can also trigger a Hulk transformation). Even Pete Docter (Pixar's chief creative officer and the film's executive producer) described it as "The Hulk, but cuter" during the D23 Presentation 2021.
- Some have joked about Master Shifu, Aggretsuko, or (in one case) Kilian, due to Mei turning into a red panda.
- Mei fantasizing about her crush as a merman and drawing him in anime style in her notebook drew many jokes on Twitter and Tumblr, where mermaid/merman AUs (alternate universes, a common fanfic trope) abound for nearly every fandom.
- Jokes about Mei's mom being a "Karen" quickly ensued due to her behavior in the teaser, especially since a serious horror film with that name and premise had its trailer released shortly before this one.
- Jokes about the film's title and premise being an allegory for menstruation. Became an Ascended Meme as the film does mention menstruation, including Ming embarrassing Mei by bringing her pads to school in front of her teacher and classmates. The film also reveals that the red panda transformation is a power only the women in Mei's family possess, which probably helps with the allegory.
- "What if furries had feelings?" Explanation Based on the long-running "What if X had feelings?"
Pixar meme, as Mei transforms into an anthropomorphic red panda. Other variations of this include:- "What if Canadians had feelings?" Explanation As the movie takes place in the Canadian city of Toronto.
- "What if Asians had feelings?" Explanation As the main characters are an Asian family.
- Mei angrily throwing a ball at Tyler in the official trailer after the latter mocks her for being a "mama's girl" has generated a slew of edits.
- Passing notes to Mei. Explanation The note being passed to Mei in class in the teaser trailer became memetic, where people edit new things to be written on the note, which then leads to the shot of her looking petrified by what's written on the note.
- "Pixar fell off so fucking hard ike what the fuvk even is that". Explanation A rather infamous Twitter post regarding the film's art style that quickly became the subject of mockery.
- "Grubhub: The Movie''. Explanation The artstyle has been frequently compared to an infamous Grubhub commercial. by several detractors who dislike the artstyle.
- "AWOOGA!" Explanation While Mei is running away from school to get back home to hide her red panda form, she passes by the Daisy Mart and sees Devon at the counter with his back turned. She then taps her foot and lets out the catcall above before quickly running away, realizing what she just did.
- "Release the gay cut." Explanation A reference to the campaign to "Release the Snyder Cut" of Justice League (2017), after the revelation by Pixar employees that Disney allegedly forced the cutting of queer content from the final film.
- Rule 34 artists be like: Explanation The scene where Mei is furiously scribbling drawings in her notebook became a meme to express how fan artists, namely those who draw Rule 34, are infamous for drawing characters who just debuted or were just announced in a very short timespan.
- "At 13..." Explanation After user reviews that expressed disgust at Mei, a thirteen year-old, doing such things as drawing fanart and crushing on boys, defenders of the movie began sharing their own embarrassing stories about cringey fanfic and other hobbies they got up to when they were thirteen, showing how many people relate to Mei's experiences and hobbies.
- "I couldn't relate to it." Explanation A reference to critic Sean O'Connell's infamous review where he criticized it because he couldn't relate to a film about a 13-year-old Asian girl and called it "limiting in its scope", which has quickly been mocked by both fans of the movie and people who didn't care for it but still found his criticisms dumb.
- "Hilarious, heartfelt & unapologetically horny." Explanation A line from a tweet about the movie by Variety reviewer Courtney Howard that many latched on to as being unintentionally disturbing due to the combination of its choice of words and the fact that many of the characters are very young. Howard explained that she was talking about the film's references to puberty and teenage hormones, but this didn't stop the negative responses and she eventually made her Twitter private.
- Some within the Newgrounds community have made comparisons between Abby Park and Nene from the Pico series.
- Abby pointing and yelling at [insert picture] Explanation The scene where Abby angrily chastises other students for littering a piece of paper has spawned a few edits, trading the paper and sometimes Abby for something or someone else.
- "Why are they called 4*Town if there are five of them?" Explanation This line from Ming is often used to poke fun at Non-Indicative Names involving numbers from various fandoms.
- Jin's The Angry Video Game Nerd. Explanation Some people have found Jin's look to be reminiscent of James Rolfe's Caustic Critic persona, which began in 2004. Though Jin doesn't have the temperament, this hasn't stopped folks from making Nerd-like rants or photoshopping James' face unto Jin's image.
- Asian Peter. Explanation Fans also noted Jin's similarities to Peter Griffin from Family Guy.
- EMOTIONAL DAMAGE! Explanation The film's theme of generational trauma common in Asian immigrant families coincides perfectly with Steven He's over-the-top portrayal of his critical Asian father.
- "STOP MOVING LIKE THAT!!" Explanation Ming's disgusted reaction to her daughter gyrating her fluffy red butt purely to get a rise out of her.
- Attack on Panda. Explanation Fans of Attack on Titan have made several videos putting songs from the anime's soundtrack over scenes from the movie and have jokingly compared the various panda forms in Mei’s family to the nine Titan forms in the series (such as Sun Yee having the Founding Titan or Ming having the Colossal Titan).
- The absolute explosion of reaction image macros, to the point it became a meme by itself the movie was designed to be mined for macros.
- invoked Ginger Snaps FOR KIDS!.Explanation A number of viewers noticed similarities between the plots of Turning Red and Ginger Snaps, a Canadian horror film from 2000 that uses werewolves as a metaphor for female puberty. These similarities, combined with Ginger Snaps being contemporary to the setting of Turning Red, made them a common subject of jokes among older fans.
- Why is nobody talking about 9/11? Explanation In The Mysterious Mr. Enter's review of the film, he criticizes (among other things) the lack of discussion of post-9/11 paranoia, given that the movie is set in 2002. The issue with these criticisms is that the movie is set in Canada six months after the attacks (along with the fact that any references to 9/11 would clash significantly with the tone of the film), which caused many to mock the criticisms and turn the idea behind them into a meme (usually by either parodying Mr. Enter's statements with other works, depicting exaggerated versions of what 9/11 coverage would look like in the film's setting, Mei attacking the Twin Towers in her panda form, and/or portraying Mei's red panda form as The Dreaded to al-Qaeda).
- THEY HIT THE PENTAGON! Explanation In response to the above controversy, people started making image macros of Mei in her panda form, captioning it with "THEY HIT THE PENTAGON" (with or without "TURN ON THE TV" and/or an f-bomb thrown in) to show how dissonant and inappropriate it would be for the movie to deal with a topic as heavy as 9/11. Like the other "Turning Red 9/11" memes, it also spread over to other works, invoking the inherent Black Comedy of it.
- Turning Red sucks! They didn't mention [X]! Explanation Adding on to the 9/11 criticism, people have also mocked Mr. Enter by saying that the film fails to mention other events and pop culture from the era, like the Florida recount or Sonic Adventure 2.
- A variation is having other Pixar movies (or any children's media, really) mockingly address similar contemporary problems (i.e. Ratatouille and controversies involving the Bush administration), modern ones ("Why isn't [X] talking about the Ukrainian invasion?"), or borderline Dadaist examples.
- Comparing 4*Town with Boys Who Cry.
- Big Mouth: The Movie. Explanation Due to Turning Red using red pandas as an allegory for puberty, it became very popular for people for compare the movie to Big Mouth, a show that much like Turning Red, is also about puberty.
