Meet the man behind the ‘Please do not swear on my profile thanks’ Facebook frame

If you frequent Facebook (or even if you don’t), you may have noticed a sudden onslaught of frames furnishing profile pictures; one specific frame sits as lone sovereign of the meme frame world.

The ‘Please do not swear on my profile thanks’ frame was approved for use on Facebook on the 24th March 2017, and in the short time since then, has come to adorn the profile pictures of around 45,000 people.

We talked to its creator Jack Salamanders, also known as Senate Salamander, about the memey sensation that’s sweeping the nation.

Where did you get your inspiration for this top-tier memery?

Obscure meme floating around a few years ago. Peter Griffin with Joe Swanson’s head with the text “Please do not swear on my profile thanks”. It knocked around occasionally popping up in different forms every now and then, and for the last week I’ve been on the lookout for any memes that would make a good profile frame.

So beyond that, what does your ‘Please do not swear’ frame mean to you?

The original picture is clearly an anachronistic take on free speech law and how censorship is the beginning of us falling into a fascist regime as demonstrated by the merging of Peter Griffin and Joe Swanson (the Id and Ego respectively if you will).

My frame is a shitpost demonstrating how bored I was in the 30 seconds it took to make it.

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve had happen to you since becoming a viral meme man?

Getting interviewed for Buzzfeed and the Tab. I can’t say I expected to get interviews for memes of all things. Like, maybe the games I make or if I got big on YouTube, but never memes.

I’m not the originator of the meme as a whole, I’m just the catalyst that made it accessible.

You mentioned making games earlier. Could you tell us more about these aforementioned games?

I’m an early stages indie game developer with two major projects in the pipeline for a while now.

Nothing released yet (that I’d be proud of enough to mention here at least) – but it’s coming, and it’s weird as hell (think Space Funeral or Yume Nikki).

What is your favourite non-Senate Salamander meme?

In general I think an absolute timeless meme that died off naturally before it became unfunny or super mainstream is the madman step.

The picture is just so effortlessly funny and when it occasionally makes a comeback I just die laughing. With newer memes however I love the way that hyper mainstream (or “normie”) memes have been co-opted by idiots like me.

We’re at the point where the worst meme I ever saw (Damn Daniel) is now hysterically funny on the basis that it ISN’T funny.

Have you peaked?

I made it to the point in life where there’s a gritty Power Rangers movie that’s actually good, so I’m basically done now.

It’s a vertical drop from here.

Senate Salamander can be found on Facebook and Youtube.