About
Caging is a type of practical joke that involves taping photographs of the American actor “Nicolas Cage”: over someone else’s belongings without their knowledge.
Origin
The earliest known documented case of someone pranking a friend with Nicolas Cage photos was uploaded by YouTuber youjustgotcaged on February 11th, 2011.
Spread
On December 9th, 2011, DeviantArtist[1] Pau-Norontaus uploaded a montage of photographs featuring his sister’s room covered in Nicolas Cage photos (shown below, left). On July 6th, 2012, the You’ve Been Caged[8] Tumblr blog was launched, with its first post highlighting photographs of an airplane seat back with a picture of Nicolas Cage taped to it (shown below, right).
On November 20th, Urban Dictionary[3] user The Cage Queen submitted an entry for the term “Caged,” defining it as a practical joke in which someone’s Facebook profile pictures and interest are changed to Nicolas Cage. The same day, Redditor the_riles posted a series of photographs of his coworker’s Caged office desk to /r/funny,[4] where it gathered upwards of 12,600 upvotes and 250 comments before it was archived (shown below, left). On December 27th, Redditor falconfalcone posted an album of photos featuring 200 nicolas cage photographs placed around his house for his roommates to find after he moved out to the /r/onetruegod[2] subreddit (shown below, right). Prior to being archived, the post garnered more than 2,800 upvotes and 55 comments.
On February 5th, 2013, a screenshot of a greentext story about pranking a girlfriend with a picture of Nicolas Cage taped to a mannequin was submitted to /r/4chan,[7] where it received over 6,500 upvotes and 45 comments before it was archived (shown below).
On April 10th, 2014, Redditor njmc2 submitted a photo of a cut-out of Nicolas Cage’s face taped to the bottom of his mouse to /r/funny,[5] where it garnered upwards of 7,500 upvotes and 130 comments in the next month. On June 5th, Redditor Sacred_Donut posted a image album containing photographs of an elaborate Caging prank in which hundreds of cut outs of the actor’s face were pasted on various objects throughout a friend’s house (shown below, middle, right). In the first 24 hours, the post gained over 16,500 upvotes and 500 comments.
