53 Years Ago, Jeremiah Johnson's Nod Of Approval Blessed Our Screens For The First Time

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Jeremiah Johnson Nod of Approval, also known as Robert Redford Nodding, is a GIF of actor Robert Redford playing the titular role in the 1972 film Jeremiah Johnson, though oftentimes Redford is mistaken for comedian Zach Galifianakis. It is often used as a reaction image indicating a form of approval. The meme appeared online as early as 2012 and spread over the following years. In 2021, it was notably recreated in Family Guy, featuring the character Peter Griffin.

Origin

The movie Jeremiah Johnson came out on December 21st, 1972. In a scene of the film, the camera zooms in on Redford's bearded face, and he nods, smiling. An upload of the clip was posted to YouTube on March 4th, 2013, by user pnightmare89 (shown below).

Spread

Prior to being posted on YouTube, the GIF circulated online as early as 2012. One of the earliest extant posts featuring the GIF was posted to FunnyJunk on April 3rd, 2012 (shown below, left). It also appeared in a whatshouldwecallme post on June 27th, 2012 (shown below, right).

#251 to #249-playahater 04/03/2012) Perhaps

The GIF appeared in a Mashable post identifying the sources of popular GIFs on August 20th, 2013. The GIF has been turned into an exploitable, with users recreating the GIF with different characters.

For example, on July 19th, 2013, Redditor EditingandLayout posted an edit of the GIF showing Redford holding a lightsaber, gaining over 2,600 points on /r/reactiongifs (shown below, left). On April 1st, 2015, Tumblr user stupjam posted a GIF of an animated Inkling Girl from Splatoon, gaining over 2,100 notes (shown below, right).

http://stupjam.tumblr.com/post/115242046684/mfw-nintendo-direct

Splinter Article

On July 9th, 2019, Splinter wrote an article about the GIF, with author Nick Martin expressing his surprise at learning that the man in the GIF is Redford. As the article spread on Twitter, others expressed similar surprise.

Twitter user @ZeeOhGee tweeted that he always thought the GIF was of comedian Zach Galifianakis, gaining over 470 retweets and 1,300 likes (shown below, left). Twitter user @ohjefframos then tweeted a GIF of Galifianakis with the caption "I can't believe this is robert freakin redford!", gaining over 30 retweets and 320 likes (shown below, right). Responses were covered by Twitter Moments.

Zac Goode Follow @ZeeOhGee Always thought this was Zach Galifianakis... You learn something new everyday Splinter@splinter_news Did you know the nodding meme guy is Robert freakin' Redford??? trib.al/C7GdywA 7:09 PM -9 Jul 2019

Jeff Ramos Follow @ohjefframos did you know this was freaking robert redford?! AER Tanott yw Dam The Snuggler GIF 6:14 PM -9 Jul 2019

Appearance In Family Guy

In season 20, episode one of Family Guy, titled "Must Love Dogs" (released October 10th, 2021), the meme and scene from Jeremiah Johnson featuring Redford was recreated when the character Stewie Griffin (dressed as the Oh My God Reaction GIF meme for Halloween) says, "Ain't that right, Pop?" as it cuts away to Peter in the original scene dressed as Jeremiah Johnson nodding.

The clip from the episode was uploaded to YouTube on July 25th, 2021, following the release of the season 20 trailer, receiving over 129,500 views, 3,000 likes and 130 comments in four years.

The recreation of the scene featuring Peter Griffin was also used in memes following the episode, typically used in the same fashion as the original. For instance, on May 10th, 2022, Redditor Background-Drive-984 posted an example to the /r/memes subreddit, receiving over 13,000 upvotes and 40 comments in three years.