Summary
Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) would occasionally bring his hand to his face in an expression of exasperation - and thus the Picard facepalm meme was born. As Captain of the USS Enterprise-D, Picard had the unenviable task of looking out for his crew and facing off against dangerous alien foes and bizarre space anomalies.Captain Picard rarely let his emotions show, remaining calm and collectedeven in the tensest situations, but sometimes, Jean-Luc got irritated enough to facepalm.
It should come as no surprise thatJohn de Lancie’s Qwas responsible for Captain Picard’s exasperated facepalm in the most common version of the meme. Q was often a thorn in Picard’s side inStar Trek: The Next Generation, popping up at the most inopportune times to drag Jean-Luc and the Enterprise into his problems or schemes.Picard resorted to facepalming several times throughoutTNGin response to various other characters. Commander William Riker (Jonathan Frakes), too, occasionally expressed his frustration in the same way. No other single shot fromTNGhas become as widely recognized as Picard’s facepalm and the memes it has spawned.
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Captain Picard’s Star Trek: TNG Facepalm Meme Explained
The most famous iteration of Captain Picard’s facepalm meme comes fromStar Trek: The Next Generationseason 3, episode 13, “Deja Q.” When Q appears on the bridge of the USS Enterprise-D claiming to have been stripped of his powers, Picard and his crew members are less than sympathetic. As Q goes on about his misfortune,Picard brings his hand to his face in an obvious expression of exasperation.When Q calls Jean-Luc"the closest thing [he has] to a friend,“Picard raises his eyes, staring at Q incredulously. The freeze frame just before Picard raises his head has since been immortalized as the now-famous meme.
Captain Picard does a similar facepalm move a few more times throughoutStar Trek: The Next Generation,even using two hands to cover his face inTNGseason 3, episode 16, “The Offspring.“As Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner) goes off on a tangent about various parenting styles, Picard briefly lets his frustration show as he tries to impress upon Data the consequences of creating another android like himself.As Picard covers his face with both hands, Data looks on in confusion,unsure how to interpret this very human expression. Picard facepalmed several times throughoutTNG,generally when he was irritated or facing a particularly difficult decision.
Commander Riker facepalms inStar Trek: The Next Generationseason 3, episode 14, “A Matter of Perspective,” as he watches the evidence being presented against him. This image has been photoshopped with the Picard image from “Deja Q” to show Picard and Riker side by side, giving a double facepalm.
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Captain Picard and Commander Riker’s facepalms are only sometimes played for laughs within the context ofStar Trek: The Next Generation. Riker’s facepalm in “A Matter of Perspective,” for example, comes during a tense trial where Riker has been accused of murder. Similarly, Picard raises his hand to his face again inStar Trek: The Next Generationseason 4, episode 21, “The Drumhead” during a serious moment just before he delivers apowerful Picard speech.The memes depicting these facepalm freeze frames become funnier out of contextwhen combined with modern-day problems or funnyStar Trektropes.
Captain Picard’s facepalm meme has become so iconic thatStar Trekfans can purchase all kinds of merchandise with variations of the meme, from stickers and magnets to t-shirts, and even a $100 Picard bust.
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary,the term"facepalm"was not coined until 1996,two years afterTNGended. Memes, too, began gaining recognition in the mid-1990s, although they would not become truly widespread until the rise of social media in the 2000s and 2010s. Patrick Stewart and the rest ofStar Trek: The Next Generation’scast, of course, had no idea that their actions would be shared around as silly photos on the internet years later, making the widespread popularity of the Picard facepalm meme even more hilarious.
