Press F to Pay Respects

Examples

Batman game screenshot with a body outline on the pavement and a green A-button Pay Your Respects prompt. Caption: Pay Your Respects

Batman pays respects

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Death/grief and weapon imagery in a game or comic.

Credit & details

Pay Your Respects

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Call of Duty funeral scene edited with cash in the foreground and Doritos, Mountain Dew and a presenter behind the coffin. Caption: Press F to Pay Respects.

F to pay

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Death/grief and weapon imagery in a game or comic.

Credit & details

Press F to Pay Respects.

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VG Cats comic satirizes game-button prompts for mourning and emotional distress. Caption: Press X to pay respects. / Hold Y to struggle with grief. / Tap RT to cry uncontrollably. / Spin RS to fight your inner demons. / YOU RECEIVED A SADNESS / I DON’T WANT TO PLAY GAMES ANYMORE...

VG Cats: Nuance

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Death/grief and weapon imagery in a game or comic.

Credit & details

Press X to pay respects. / Hold Y to struggle with grief. / Tap RT to cry uncontrollably. / Spin RS to fight your inner demons. / YOU RECEIVED A SADNESS / I DON’T WANT TO PLAY GAMES ANYMORE...

Visible copyright 2014 Scott Ramsoomair; VG Cats / VGCats.com.

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An edited Final Fantasy VII scene shows Cloud holding Aerith, with a blue dialogue box reading “Press F to pay respects”.

A very unwelcome interface update · Final Fantasy VII spoiler

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Credit & details

A solemn scene from another game acquires the same awkward instruction. The added box is the joke: the edit imagines a familiar emotional moment interrupted by a tutorial. This is a later meme overlay, not an original Final Fantasy VII prompt.

Embedded credits retained.

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A masked corporate-villain figure in a suit sits amid flying banknotes; the added instruction reads “Press F to Print Money”.

One key, a very different objective

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Credit & details

The button has been reassigned from a solemn ritual to a shamelessly profitable one. The archive tags this image to Angry Joe’s Corporate Commander. It is a comedy edit, not evidence of a real money-printing feature or a claim about an identified person’s finances.

Embedded credits retained.; Archive identifies the Angry Joe / Corporate Commander context

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Red crown poster reading “KEEP CALM AND Press ‘F’ To Pay Respect”.

Keep calm and consult your keyboard

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Credit & details

The clipped game command gets dressed as reassuring poster wisdom. Two instruction-giving formats collide: one promises composure, the other tells you exactly which key to use. No game screenshot is needed once the phrase itself is recognisable.

Embedded credits retained.

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About & sources

A literal keyboard instruction at a fictional funeral becomes a compact online response to loss, failure or an unfortunate moment.

Date

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare funeral prompt; selected2014 marks the game sequence and documented November reactions, not the first use of every later F response.

History

Know Your Meme documents the funeral sequence in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, released in November 2014: the PC version asks the player to press F to pay respects, while the console version uses X. Its chronology records early November video coverage and a November4 discussion asking why the cue was being mocked. Later, F became a chat shorthand associated with sorrow and failures. This exhibit selects the documented2014 game-and-reaction checkpoint, not a definitive first use of every derivative. Context matters: a joke about awkward game design does not make real bereavement a punchline. Preview depicts a fictional military funeral; grief/death themes, no real funeral footage. Representative game still only, not playable preservation. Game/art rights remain with their respective holders; public reuse rights are not established. Private research preview only; no affiliation or endorsement.

Know Your Meme — Press F chronology
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Press F to Pay Respects representative image