Sneople

About

Sneople, a portmanteau of the words “snake” and “people”, refers to a race of reptilian humanoids mentioned in an episode of the animated television series Steven Universe. In April 2015, the term was popularized on Tumblr along with other portmanteaus, including “snurch” (snake + church), sneeple (snail + people) and sneme (snail + meme).

Origin

On October 30th, 2014, Episode 31 Season 1 “Keep Beach City Weird” of Steven Universe was broadcast on the Cartoon Network, in which the character Ronaldo tells the protagonist Steven about his theories regarding snake people (“sneople”) who plan to take over the world (shown below).

Spread

On March 14th, 2015, Tumblr^[3] user rhubabe submitted the post “take me to snurch (snail church)” in reference to the song 2013 indie rock song “Take Me to Church,” which gained over 60,300 notes in the following six weeks (shown below).

On April 20th, Tumblr user uwufucker submitted the post “hi welcome to snili’s (snail chili’s)” in reference to the “welcome to Chili’s” remix videos. On April 22nd, Tumblr^[2] user featherofficial submitted a post explaining the differences between the “snake/snail memes,” garnering upwards of 93,200 notes in the first 24 hours (shown below).

That day, Tumblr user queensnufkin posted a webcomic of Ronaldo from Steven Universe held captive in a snake church (shown below). Also on April 22nd, the Meme Documentation Tumblr^[5] published a post titled “Explained: sneme,” which described the origins of the “sneople” and “sneeple” portmanteaus.

Search Interest

Not available.

External References