Lord Elmo
| Meme | |
|---|---|
| Synonyms: | Lord English Elmo, Elmo |
| Date Started: | 2019 |
| Related: | Homestuck |
| See Also: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Lord Elmo used here is the meme or practice of depicting the villainous character from Homestuck, Lord English, as Elmo from the TV show Sesame Street, or calling him "Lord Elmo" or just "Elmo".
Origins and the Rev Scarecrow Charity Streams
In fall of 2019, the streamer Rev Scarecrow (from the Vinesauce group) offered to do a on-stream (blind aka unspoliered) read-through/read-along of the webcomic Homestuck in exchange for charity donations. As Homestuck is a very long webcomic series, this was expected to and did last more than one year. Because Rev Scarecrow is very dyslexic, and more importantly, known for his humor, it was expected to have an at least somewhat humorous tone. This read through ended up becoming a fairly major hub for Homestuck fans to discuss things and meet in the chat and in youtube comments. And was a big event in the fandom in the years it was ongoing.
Because Homestuck involves time travel, at some point early during the streams, Rev as a joke created and drew a quick doodle of the hyopthetical Homestuck character "Elmo as a Time Traveler". Many fans, who were more aware of the comic than him because he was reading blind, found it funny, spooky, or a combination that his description of "Elmo Time Traveler" sounded a lot like the not-yet-encountered Big Bad of Homestuck, Lord English. Through a combination of both his own inventions and picking up discussions and references from chat, Elmo continued to develop and resemble Lord English. When the character of Lord English was finally fully revealed in a later stream, Rev replied "Elmo? What the hell is Elmo doing here?" prompting laughter. At some of chat's request a special emoji for use in his chat was added, which was a picture of a menacing and angry Elmo with the word "Fear" written under it.
Use in Fandom
It is now somewhat common to draw Lord English as Emo from Sesame Street in fanart. Lord English is also now sometimes referred to as Elmo or Lord Elmo. It's also now a thing in discussions where someone thinks it's appropriate to copy-paste the "elmo fear" emoji into the conversation, or to just type out the words (in all caps) ELMO and/or FEAR.
Example Fanworks
- Lord Elmo by Quuartzz (some animated/flashing gif elements)
- Elmo, he's already here by Justalittlejinxed