“This can go two ways, punk. One, you walk away. Two, I walk on your face.”- Shaggy Scooby-Doo! Legend of the Phantosaur (2011)

Cartoon character, Norville “Shaggy” Rogers from the Scooby-Doo franchise, has been trending recently as a meme. While source material, like the second live action Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, depicts Shaggy as a coward and goofball, recent memes depict him as an unstoppable force to be reckoned with.

The most popular form of this meme has been screenshots taken from interviews of the behind-the-scene footage of the two live action Scooby-Doo movies, where Matthew Lillard plays Shaggy. These screenshots have text added them to increase the powerful Shaggy narrative. Topics range from Shaggy destroying a planet named Apollo, stealing crew member’s souls on set, and not being able to work with him for longer than five seconds, because their mortal bodies couldn’t handle any longer.

These memes have been circulating on the Internet for a while now. In 2017, a clip from the movie Scooby-Doo! Legend of the Phantosaur, where Shaggy takes on a biker gang, had a song from called “Super Instinct” from the anime, Dragon Ball Super, layered onto it. The video currently sits at over 7 million views. This clip seems to be the origin of  “Super Instinct Shaggy,” the first of many Shaggy’s forms. Here, he was able to achieve Super Instinct and take on anyone, including Goku.

The release of Avengers: Infinity War last April paved the way for another powerful Shaggy. When the movie came out, the question rose of who could defeat Thanos? While people drew from what happened in the comics and easter eggs to see who could do this, other people went down less serious routes. Shrek, Bigweld, and of course, Shaggy, were all named as worthy opponents. Variations of this meme include Shaggy grabbing the infinity gauntlet and asking Thanos if he’s “challenging him.” The release of the Avengers: End Game trailer back in December found a revival of this particular Shaggy meme, but it was anywhere close to the popularity the meme is now experiencing.

Shaggy’s next foe was the very fabric of the universe. The current Shaggy meme is the most powerful; a combination of all the memes mentioned above and more. Images and videos have been mixed, edited, and distorted. One big source of these memes has come from the Reddit page, r/Shaggymemes. It also been trending on other popular social media sites like Twitter and Tumblr. Many students have also been sharing the memes among their friends.

Sophomore, Camila Ramirez, has been sharing Shaggy memes with anyone who will listen.

“Alright, here’s the thing. I feel like I’m an avid Scooby Doo fan,” said Ramirez, “and I feel like it’s about time that people realize Shaggy’s true strength and potential.”

Lillard has responded to the memes, initially rejecting the memes. He commented on a meme shared on Twitter saying, “This is wrong.” This was on January 25. On January 27, he responded to a tweet made by the official Reddit account promoting a Shaggy meme thread, saying “Dear universe. Please never let this end.” Since then, Lillard has been writing positive tweets about any Shaggy memes on the site, calling some “magic” and “awesome.”

With the popularity of Shaggy’s power, a petition has appeared to make Shaggy a DLC for the video game Mortal Kombat 11, and it currently has 400,000 signatures. According to WokenNew, the news parody cite who started this petition, cites Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment as the company who published the game. Warner Brothers is the company that currently owns the rights to Scooby-Doo. However, nothing has been confirmed.

After years of Shaggy being portrayed as weak, the meme has shown his true strength. The proof has been there for a while, we have just been blind to it and settled for slapstick humor. While the meme has died down with the end of January, the mark he has left on the Scooby-Doo franchise will never be forgotten. Perhaps future canon will include, or at least reference, Shaggy’s unlimited power.