references/format-bank.md

# Format Bank

Pick the visual for the chosen mechanism. A recognizable reaction can carry emotion; a staged screenshot can supply the setup; a text-led panel can itself be the joke. The image and copy should each add something, including when one is deliberately absent.

## Contents
1. How to use this bank
2. Global formats by emotional state
3. Egyptian visual sources
4. Saudi and Gulf visual sources
5. Ways to build a format that does not exist yet
6. Sourcing something fresh
7. What to avoid

---

## 1. How to use this bank

You arrive here from step 5 with a one-word emotional state. Do this:

1. Find that state below and read the options.
2. Ask which of them **this specific audience has actually seen**. For established templates, check whether this cohort recognizes the format. An original picture or accurate work-interface screenshot can work without prior template familiarity. Avoid assuming everyone of the same age or city shares references.
3. Pick the one where the swap writes itself. If you cannot immediately hear the line, move on.
4. Name a second option in the spec, because the first one may not be findable in decent quality.

Two directions both work and both belong in the bank:
- **Localize a global format** — a known internet template dragged into the audience's world
- **Update a local reference** — a scene the audience has quoted since childhood, with one word swapped

Prefer the local reference when the audience is tightly regional. Prefer the global format when the audience is young, online, or mixed across markets.

---

## 2. Global formats by emotional state

These travel across all three markets because they come from cartoons and the internet rather than from one country's television.

### استسلام / quiet defeat
- **Sad Jerry in bed with a phone** — lying down, eyes half closed, scrolling. The default face of "I have given up but I am still watching".
- **Skeleton waiting on a bench** — waiting so long you died. For approvals, replies, promised raises.
- **Squidward looking out the window** — watching other people have the life you wanted.
- **Homer Simpson reversing into the hedge** — disappearing from a conversation you should not have entered.

### صدمة / dawning horror
- **Anakin and Padmé, "for the better, right?"** — the moment the other person does not answer. Perfect for a request that is about to get much worse.
- **Surprised Pikachu** — fake shock at a completely predictable outcome. Use when the audience warned someone and was ignored.
- **Woman yelling at a cat** — a two-panel accusation with a blank, unbothered defendant.

### إنكار / denial
- **"This is fine" dog in the burning room** — the whole account is on fire and the reply is "we will handle it next sprint".
- **Two buttons, sweating** — an impossible choice the character is pretending is not impossible.

### رعب هادي / polite dread
- **Mort from Madagascar, wide-eyed** — someone very small being told everything is fine.
- **Crying SpongeBob with the zippers pulled shut** — forced to smile and stay quiet.
- **Hide the pain Harold** — a smile that is structurally load-bearing.

### شماتة / enjoying it
- **Disaster girl in front of the fire** — caused the chaos, staying for it.
- **Kermit sipping tea** — passive aggression with plausible deniability.
- **Michael Jackson eating popcorn** — watching a fight you are not in.

### فخر مقلوب / reverse brag
- **Drake hotline bling two-panel** — rejecting the obvious, choosing the strange thing.
- **Expanding brain** — an escalating sequence of increasingly unhinged ideas.
- **Gigachad** — absurd confidence about a very small achievement.

### حيرة / confusion
- **Nick Young with floating question marks** — total incomprehension.
- **Math lady / confused calculations** — trying to reconstruct someone's reasoning and failing.
- **Patrick "is mayonnaise an instrument"** — the irrelevant contribution in a serious meeting.

### تعرف / recognition
- **Leonardo DiCaprio pointing at the screen** — spotting yourself, or spotting a familiar pattern.
- **Spider-Man pointing at Spider-Man** — two parties accusing each other of the same thing.

### نشوة / euphoria
- **Crowd at a street celebration, hands in the air** — disproportionate joy at a small professional win. Works especially well in Egyptian and Gulf contexts because the visual reads as local.

---

## 3. Egyptian visual sources

Egyptian meme culture pulls mostly from film and television that people have quoted since childhood, plus whatever went viral in the last month.

Treat the categories below as **search directions for the designer**, not as a fixed catalogue. When you name a specific scene in a spec, describe it precisely enough that someone can find it (who is in frame, what is happening, roughly which era), and mark it as a suggestion so the designer can swap it if they cannot source it cleanly.

### Category A — Old and classic cinema
Wide frames, theatrical faces, dialogue everyone can finish. Best for: dignified disappointment, paternal authority, a craftsman talking down to an amateur, delivering bad news calmly.

### Category B — Comedy film and TV of the 2000s
Exaggerated, cartoonish faces. Best for: stupidity played straight, denial, chaotic confidence, someone completely misreading a situation.

### Category C — Drama series stills
Tense, quiet, well-lit faces. Best for: cold anger, veiled threats, the manager who is smiling while saying something terrible.

### Category D — Talk shows and interviews
Reaction shots of guests and hosts. Best for: visible disbelief, defensive explanation, the face of someone who has been asked an uncomfortable question.

### Category E — Viral street clips and social videos
Anything that circulated in the last 30 to 60 days. Best for: freshness, and for signalling that the account is online right now. Shortest shelf life in the bank; a clip from six months ago already reads as late.

### Category F — Family and home footage
Kids, mothers, siblings, neighbours. Best for: the lifestyle and personal pillar rather than the work pillar. Softer tone, wider audience, higher share rate among non-professional followers.

### How to search for one
Give the designer a query, not a wish. Useful shapes:
- "مشهد + [اسم الحالة] + فيلم مصري قديم"
- "ريأكشن + [الحالة] + برنامج توك شو"
- "ميم مصري + [الحالة]"
- Search meme pages and reels rather than film archives; the crop you want is usually already made

---

## 4. Saudi and Gulf visual sources

A Gulf audience may or may not recognize a specific Egyptian film reference. Confirm with the intended group and prefer locally relevant examples where there is evidence of familiarity.

### Category A — Saudi comedy and sketch television
Long-running sketch and satire shows are the deepest shared reference pool, especially for work situations, bureaucracy and generational friction.

### Category B — Gulf drama series
Family and social drama stills. Best for: judgement, disapproval, silent tension across a majlis.

### Category C — Social and street clips
Snapchat, X and TikTok clips that circulated regionally. Highest freshness, shortest life.

### Category D — Everyday Gulf texture
Photographs rather than scenes: an empty office at the end of the shift, the coffee run, a mall at 11pm, Riyadh Season crowds, traffic. Best used when a face would be too specific and the situation itself is the joke.

### Category E — Global formats
Gulf audiences online are fluent in the same cartoon and internet templates as everyone else, so section 2 applies directly.

Tone note: Gulf humour on brand accounts runs drier and more restrained than Egyptian. Loud, exaggerated faces land less reliably than deadpan ones. Avoid anything that could read as mocking family, religion, or region.

---

## 5. Ways to build a format that does not exist yet

When nothing in the bank carries the state, build it. These four techniques cover almost every case.

**Original localized reaction.** Create an original character with a specific emotional expression in an authentic local setting. Do not reproduce a protected cartoon character or recreate a copyrighted film still without appropriate rights. Recognition can come from the household or work situation.

**Composite with authorized assets.** Put an original character, a licensed photo or an approved product prop into a scene built for the concept. Do not assume a public figure's likeness, copyrighted character or famous composition is free to modify.

**The screenshot.** A fake chat thread, a calendar invite at 11:47pm, a Slack message, a Google Doc comment, a rejected quote. Extremely strong for workplace memes because it needs no cultural reference at all, only a shared work reality. Keep the UI accurate down to the timestamp; a wrong detail breaks it instantly.

**Multi-panel.** Two stacked panels for setup and answer, or a 2x2 grid for escalation over four beats. Use the grid only when the joke genuinely escalates; otherwise it dilutes.

---

## 6. Sourcing something fresh

The bank goes stale. Signs you need something new: the format has appeared on three brand accounts in your feed this month, or the audience's comments start naming the template instead of the joke.

Where fresh formats come from, roughly in order of usefulness:
1. Clips that went viral in the target market in the last few weeks
2. A line from a new series or film that people started quoting in comments
3. A screenshot of a real interface everyone in that job uses
4. A reaction photograph of someone the audience knows from their own industry

When you suggest something fresh, say how recent it is in the spec, so the designer knows whether they are racing a clock.

---

## 7. What to avoid

**Stock photography.** Smiling people in an office is the visual equivalent of a press release. If the face was paid to have that expression, it carries nothing.

**Formats that peaked years ago.** Distracted boyfriend and a few others are now shorthand for "a brand made this". Use them only with a twist that acknowledges their age.

**Faces the audience has never seen.** Recognition is half the mechanism. An unknown actor's expressive face is just a photograph.

**Anything that punches down.** Body, class, region, accent, religion, gender. Aside from being wrong, it converts a share into a screenshot in a group chat about your brand. The target is always the situation, and when it is a person, it is the one with power in the scene: the manager, the client, the system. Never the junior, the customer, or the audience itself.

**Recognizable private individuals** used to represent something unflattering, unless they are public figures and the joke is about their public role.

**Real tragedy, active crises, or current political events.** No brand meme is worth that.


## 8. Additional formats and rights

The global named-template list is a search vocabulary for analyzing existing meme culture, not a license to regenerate protected characters. Source permission must be resolved before final production. When rights are unknown, hand over the emotional pose and scene in an original-art alternative. Do not claim a trend is fresh based solely on this reference bank; verify against dated material or label freshness unknown. Plausible non-template formats include staged DMs clearly labeled as fiction, late-night notification screenshots with invented participants, original UI mockups, object-labeling photos, visual-only reaction, split-screen expectation/reality, text-only confession and a three-beat escalation. For a regional client, select references by their specific subculture and actual social behavior, not a single national stereotype.