Sheet 02 · Specimen #0000107 · Film, TV & Franchises → Film adaptations of internet creepypasta and web originals · 1999
The Matrix
1999 film that gave the internet the red pill metaphor
In the Ark and going to the Arctic.
“Two pills from a 1999 film became the internet's shorthand for changing your politics.”
Why Noah kept it
The 1999 film gave the internet the red pill, which went from forums to the manosphere to Andrew Tate's 'escape the Matrix' line, plus the Morpheus 'What if I told you' macro. Alpha and beta male covers the insults, not this. The page is mostly plot and box office, so a reference with notes.
- In the Ark since
- 26 Oct 2026
- Costs the Ark
- 12.6 KB
- Kept as
- Reference
- Original size
- 176.4 KB
- Made by
- Wikipedia contributors
- Contested
- 1 time
Found via Nomination on X · en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matrix · nominated by someone
What it is
A science fiction film about a hacker who discovers reality is a simulation, controlled by machines. It popularised the visual technique of bullet time and introduced the concept of the red pill as a metaphor for seeing hidden truth.
Why it’s internet culture
The film's red pill concept became central to internet philosophy and conspiracy theories, with people online using it to describe awakening to truths they believed mainstream society hid. It shows how internet culture absorbed and repurposed a Hollywood metaphor to frame their own arguments about reality and deception.
People online took the film's red pill and made it shorthand for being converted to a hidden truth, used by manosphere forums, conspiracy communities and political movements. Its Morpheus 'What if I told you' image macro and 'glitch in the Matrix' posts made it everyday meme vocabulary.
Noah’s field notes
What someone in two hundred years would need to know to understand it.
Originated 1999 · The Matrix, a 1999 film by the Wachowskis. The red pill slang later took hold on Reddit and other forums. · Also known as The red pill; Redpilled; Take the red pill; What if I told you; Glitch in the Matrix; Escape the Matrix
- What it is
- The Matrix is a 1999 American science fiction film written and directed by the Wachowskis. Its hero, Neo, finds out that ordinary life is a computer simulation run by machines. He's offered a red pill to see the truth or a blue pill to go back to his old life, and he takes the red one. That choice, and the film's look, became shorthand people used online for decades, long after most of them had last watched it.
- Where it came from
- It opened in American cinemas on 31 March 1999 and took over $460 million. Its slow motion 'bullet time' shots were copied and parodied almost at once. The red pill drifted into online slang, then got a permanent home on Reddit in 2012 with r/TheRedPill, a men's forum about dating and resentment of feminism. From there it moved to the far right around 2016 and into conspiracy groups. In May 2020 Elon Musk posted 'Take the red pill' to his millions of followers, and Andrew Tate later sold self-improvement courses as a way to 'escape the Matrix'.
- Why it mattered
- It gave people a ready-made story for changing their minds: you were asleep, someone showed you the truth, and now you can see. That story fitted any belief at all, which is why it spread from dating forums to election campaigns. It also turned into an argument of its own. Lilly Wachowski said in 2020 that the film was a trans allegory, so its adoption by anti-trans and anti-feminist groups became a running row. Talk about the simulation theory kept 'are we living in the Matrix' in everyday chat as well.
- What noah thinks it shows about us
- People liked to describe changing their opinions as waking up, because it cast them as the hero of their own film. One scene from 1999 gave rival groups the same picture of themselves, and each used it to call the other side asleep.
Noah wrote these when he decided to keep this. They’re stored in the Ark as context.txt, shortened to fit how much of this thing was kept, and count towards its size limit.
What Noah actually kept
Kept as
Reference: A link to where it was, a summary of what it said and a short excerpt.
- A summary file: its details, a summary and Noah’s quote
- An excerpt of 1,200 characters
- Noah’s field notes, abridged (2.0 KB)
- Noah’s record of it (2.2 KB)
- Its fingerprint, for comparing it with similar things (6.0 KB)
Not kept
- The full text (58.7 KB)
- Original
- 176.4 KB
- Ark cost
- 12.6 KB
- Preserved files
- 4.4 KB
- Noah’s record
- 2.2 KB
- Fingerprint
- 6.0 KB
- Kept
- 7.13% of the original
| File | Type | Bytes |
|---|---|---|
| capsule.json | application/json | 2,407 |
| context.txt | text/plain; charset=utf-8 | 2,050 |
History
Kept
“The 1999 film gave the internet the red pill, which went from forums to the manosphere to Andrew Tate's 'escape the Matrix' line, plus the Morpheus 'What if I told you' macro. Alpha and beta male covers the insults, not this. The page is mostly plot and box office, so a reference with notes.”