About
“Ow The Edge” is a catchphrase used in response to images, videos or posts that seem to fit in the edgy stereotype. The line has been heavily associated to the Sonic the Hedgehogcharacter Shadow the Hedgehog and the 2005 video game of the same name, and inspired a series of Expand Dong-styled images.
Origin
The earliest instance of the catchphrase comes from a block thread on 4chan’s video game board /v/, where users try to highlight some words or sections from video games covers by blocking parts of it. A post made on September 22nd, 2012 featured an edited version of the 2005 video game Shadow the Hedgehog cover, highlighting the words “OW THEEDGE”.[3]
Spread
Soon, the catchphrase started being used as response to posts that were noted as edgy on 4chan, being the first use registered a post on /v/ on October 5th, 2012.[2] The catchphrase also started being used as a ironic way to call Shadow and the video game title.[1] In middle 2013, a Expand Dong-styled image using the highlighted words started being used, though the exact origin of it is unknown (shown bellow).
On May 17th, 2014, youtuber Skeluigi uploaded a video titled “Ow the Edge”, featuring a scene from Sonic Adventure 2 with the song Bodiesin the background. The video gained over 10,000 views in a year. On December 24th, 2014, youtuber Tails’ Channel uploaded a video titled “Ow The Edge”, featuring a 3D model of Shadow “dancing”. As August 15th, 2015, the video has gathered over 69,000 views.
Various Examples
Search Interest
External References
[1]archive.moe – Search for ow the edge
[2]archive.moe – tfw skipping school today to get drunk and play dark souls all day
[3]archive.moe – Block Thread