You've been making Bill Cosby memes for years, but there's always been that pang in the back of your mind. "This isn't legal," you told yourself. While you were typing in those white, oversized Impact font letters over a classic shot of Bill in a sweater, you were probably thinking about that MPAA advertisement that used to run before the start of DVDs, showing all the terrible things that could come from copyright infringement. Well, good news for you, because today there's an official, sanctioned Bill Cosby meme generator.
That thing you've been able to do on the internet, or in the privacy of your own home for years — though with a sense of guilt — is now a thing Cosby is offering up to the world. With it, you can add your own captions, and joy to the world. Cosby invited people to start using it by offering up a meme of himself ushering in the beginning of the work week that people look forward to all weekend long:
Go ahead. Meme me! http://t.co/uM3KSji8or #CosbyMeme pic.twitter.com/9PbpQqz33X
— Bill Cosby (@BillCosby) November 10, 2014
As BuzzFeed notes, the idea is not off to a great start: people have been using the generator to reference the allegations that Cosby was involved in more than a dozen instances of rape dating back to the 1970s.
The tool lets people say anything they want, but requires an editorial process that weeds anything that violates its terms of use before it shows up for others to see. That didn't stop people from taking screenshots of their work, and sharing it to the world:
#CosbyMeme Oh Boy! pic.twitter.com/5shOSuH74c
— E.J. Coughlin (@ejc) November 10, 2014
Here we go #Cosbymeme pic.twitter.com/HMp1VwoHNk
— S.I. Rosenbaum (@sirosenbaum) November 10, 2014
As for what's ended up on the site, it's a different story:
If you're wondering how @BillCosby's team *thought* #CosbyMeme would go, these are the examples from his website. pic.twitter.com/skq3WC7sBM
— dan barker (@danbarker) November 10, 2014