At the very core of quality comedy, you’ll find two main things—brevity and creativity. Ideally, you want your quips to be witty and punchy and offer a fresh take on relevant topics. But we all need a dash of inspiration from time to time. And there are few internet phenomena more widely known than the so-called ‘Reply Guy’ Xavier.

Xavier, also known as Pakalu Papito, is a made-up personality who’s taken a life on his own and inspired tons of meme-focused social media accounts. The character is known for his hilarious internet comments, self-aware humor, and dad jokes. The ‘Xavier’ (aka ‘Idealist Xavier’ aka ‘Xavier Komedy’) social media project creates and shares the best memes using this format, and they’re bound to boost your mood. Check out the top ones below and remember to upvote your faves as you scroll down.

Bored Panda reached out to the founder of the ‘Xavier’ meme page, and they were kind enough to tell us about the inspiration behind it and how to stand out on social media. Check out our full interview with them below.

More info: Facebook | Instagram 

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Image credits: Xavier

According to the founder of the ‘Xavier’ Facebook page, they don’t mind other meme copycats on social media. However, they do take issue with those pages that make dirty memes and objectify genders which they don’t support at all.

“I want my memes to be clean and simple, and I don’t want myself to be associated with someone who objectifies people on the basis of color, gender, and sexual preferences. When I created the page, I was expecting 50K followers in a month which is a very good figure in itself, but by the grace of God, the page reached around 350K followers in the first month itself. Everyone loved to see Xavier’s viewpoint on things,” the founder told Bored Panda via email.

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We were very curious about what advice the ‘Xavier’ meme page curator would give someone who wants to stand out on social media. According to them, authenticity is probably the most important aspect of having an online presence.

“I would like to give one piece of advice to everyone who wants to stand out on social media: just be real. Don’t worry about likes or followers, just have a motive of bringing a positive change in the world and bringing joy to other people’s lives. Giving is all we are supposed to do. Technical advice: Work on SMO [social media optimization], develop design skills, learn about psychology, etc.” they suggested.

The page founder opened up to Bored Panda that they’ve been making memes ever since their college failed to offer them employment. “One day I was sitting alone and thought of a character which would hit the hearts of millions of people, so I put all my thoughts into it and decided on ‘Xavier’—a middle-aged Indian man with a mustache, who you would least expect to say witty things, with whom people would empathize,” they said.

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“So there I was, changed my name legally, got myself plastic surgery to look like my imagination,” they joked. However, the goal of their meme page is very wholesome: making people’s lives better by getting them to smile and laugh.

“The purpose of Xavier, more than fame, more than money (which I’m getting none anyway) is to bring smiles into the lives of people, I get many messages on how my memes make people happy, which is my biggest motivation to carry on despite being broke and put all my focus into bringing joy and happiness in their lives.”

The founder added that they’d like to share their gratitude. “I would like to thank Asif, who’s one of the kindest and sweetest people on the earth, and thanks for believing in me always and helping me out with everything. One more mention I would like to make is ‘SkyWolf’ who is my own alter ego, pushed me to be stronger and believe in myself.”

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The ‘Idealist Xavier’ Facebook page has 2.8 million followers and has gotten 1.8 million likes. Meanwhile, the ‘Xavier Komedy’ (yes, with a ‘k,’ not a ‘c’) account on Instagram, which is run by the same team, has 9k followers.

The founders of the project have also created the ‘We Are Xavier’ Facebook group on top of that. So if you’re a fan of Xavier memes or simply want to follow the life of this imaginary man with an odd sense of humor, then they’ve got you covered.

‘Reply Guy’ Xavier is what happens when you take the Pakalu Papito novelty Twitter account and make it go beyond viral. Papito is a fictional Indian convenience store clerk with a large mustache who is best known for his joke tweets, love of puns, and use of irreverent humor.

Meanwhile, the ‘Reply Guy’ part alludes to certain internet users who are overly flirty on social media and respond to many women’s comments.

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Originally launched in mid-2013, Papito’s Twitter account soon gained hundreds of thousands of followers on the social media platform. “The character is presented as a 7-11 convenience store clerk who has an intimate relationship with his pet camel,” Know Your Meme explains. The very first thing that Papito shared on his Twitter account was about how he’s single.

In late 2013, the official Pakalu Papito Facebook page was created which reposted everything that the founder of the character shared on Twitter. The page, like its counterpart on Twitter, soon went viral as well. The character became more and more popular, the meme spread, and more internet users became aware of the character’s existence. However, some social media users thought that the meme was too stereotypical.

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According to Know Your Meme, the original creator of Papito has “fallen off and out of public view” after being suspended in the summer of 2018. However, quality memes never truly die. Others rushed to pick up Papito’s banner just as soon as it’d fallen. That’s why you see such an incredible number of copycat Papito accounts all over social media: only now they often use the name Xavier instead.

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Know Your Meme also points out that some of Papito’s copycats “appear to be the first actual Indians to take on Pakalu Papito’s face and gimmick. They routinely post in Hindi and engage with Indian trends and topics.” The meme has, in effect, gone international and appeals to people all over the globe.

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The original creator of Papito’s character isn’t known, but some internet users believe that he might be an actual man living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Most others, however, think that he must be a fake persona because of the amount of edgy (and sometimes insensitive) humor involved.

The most popular formats for Xavier memes are twofold. In the first, content creators place Xavier’s witty comment on top of something that another internet user posted. In the second, Xavier is seen chatting with someone else: either a complete stranger or another novelty account.

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Internet comments, unlike real-life comebacks, don’t have to be as speedy. You can take your time to craft the perfect silly response. However, the comments really do have to be brief. Internet users are bombarded with massive amounts of information every single day in their feeds, so if your comment is too long, you’ve lost your audience (even if your quip was good).

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The comments also have to be as clear and to the point as possible. There isn’t a meme in the world that absolutely everyone will get, but the most popular ones are those that most folks relate to. However, if the situation is reversed and the vast majority are confused or need the joke explained to them, then they’re going to move on to some other piece of content.

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Which of these Xavier/Papito memes did you enjoy the most, dear Pandas? Were you aware of the meme’s existence before this post? What do you personally think makes a meme or comment memorable and funny? We’d love to hear from you, so swing by the comment section to share your thoughts.

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