James Franco 'First Time?'
The First Time meme is a screenshot from the 2018 Coen Brothers film The Ballad of Buster Scruggs: James Franco's cowboy turns to a crying man on the gallows and asks 'First time?' People post it to tease someone who has just discovered an old, well-known problem. The meme was born on November 25, 2018 with a tweet by @Ayub_dz, after Netflix had uploaded the film's trailer to YouTube on September 12, 2018.
Names & aliases
What’s it called?
One umbrella name, many instance formats — here is how the names nest.
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UmbrellaFirst Time? memes
James Franco's cowboy asking a crying man on the gallows 'First time?'
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InstanceFirst Time?
The quote itself, per KYM entry title 'James Franco "First Time?"'.
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InstanceJames Franco First Time meme
KYM entry name.
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Instancefirst time meme
Template-site naming, e.g. supermeme.ai 'First-time-meme-template' (in 竞品词条URL清单, supermeme index 497).
Usage
How to use it
Tone
deadpan / dark.
Where it lands
Responding to someone horrified by a routine misfortune regulars have long accepted — gallows humor by design.
How it evolved
Source: the 2018 Coen Brothers film The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (scene at the gallows); meme born November 25, 2018 (tweet by @Ayub_dz).
Easy to get wrong
The joke is literally set at a hanging, so it lands as dark humor and can read as callous about real tragedies. Use it for recurring nuisances, not fresh disasters.
Origin
Origin & timeline
- 2018Source: the 2018 Coen Brothers film The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (scene at the gallows); meme born November 25, 2018 (tweet by @Ayub_dz) — The film's trailer was uploaded by Netflix to YouTube on September 12, 2018; the meme spread from Twitter to Imgur and Reddit
- 2018September 12, 2018: Netflix's Ballad of Buster Scruggs trailer ends with the 'First time?' clip and passes 1.7 million views in under three months (KYM).
- 2018November 25, 2018: @Ayub_dz tweets the screenshot ('When you're hiding from a school shooter and the foreign exchange student starts crying') — 37,000+ retweets and 131,000 likes in five days (KYM).
- Within five days the tweet is mirrored to Imgur (5,800+ points, 158,000 views) and Reddit (58,000+ points), and r/dankmemes fills with variations (KYM).
- 2018November 26-30, 2018: follow-ups include an anti-vaccination version (15,000+ points), a Lion King Mufasa joke, and an object-labeling version naming video game developers (KYM).
Verifiable sources
Templates
Make your own
- No canonical blank template for this meme — captions go on any image of the subject.
We link out to generators and blank templates; meme images are never rehosted on memefern.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
What is the 'First time?' meme?
A screenshot of James Franco as an unnamed cowboy in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018), asking a crying man at the gallows 'First time?' It's used as a deadpan punchline when someone is shocked by a bad thing that happens routinely.
What movie is the First Time meme from?
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, the Coen Brothers' 2018 Western anthology on Netflix. The clip appears at the end of the official trailer, uploaded September 12, 2018 (KYM).
When did the First Time meme start?
November 25, 2018, when Twitter user @Ayub_dz posted the screenshot. The tweet passed 37,000 retweets and 131,000 likes in five days (KYM).
What does 'First time?' mean in the meme?
It's what veterans say to a newcomer who is horrified by something they've all lived through many times — the humor is in treating an awful situation as routine.
Is the First Time meme offensive?
It's dark by construction (the scene is an execution), and some early versions joked about school shootings. It works best on recurring everyday pains — bugs, deadlines, sports heartbreak — and badly on recent real tragedies.