“Outer space movie 1992” is a notorious search term, but it’s not exactly a firm favorite among sci-fi fans. It’s a years-long, ridiculous meme, and here’s what you need to know.
Growing up with the advent of the internet – particularly in the lawless days of uncensored LiveLeak content and Rotten.com – meant being exposed to some of the most nauseating, shocking images imaginable at a young age.
In the early 2010s, if your friend told you to search something seemingly innocuous on Google, there was cause to be cautious. Fortunately, “outer space movie 1992” isn’t a trick to make you see something horribly graphic. But, if you’ve seen a picture of Peter Griffin and a message urging you to never search it, here’s what you’d find if you looked it up yourself.
Warning: some may find this content offensive.
Outer space movie 1992 meme explained
If you search “space movie 1992” on Google, you’ll find a film called Gayn*****s in Outer Space.
You’ll be directed to several websites, whether it’s the movie’s IMDb and Wikipedia pages or MUBI’s streaming hub (it’s not available to watch right now). If it wasn’t obvious, the shock factor of its racist title is what caused its infamy in the first place.
It was first posted by @mecchaa.memes on Instagram in 2020, alongside an image of Walter White in the ‘Ozymandias’ episode of Breaking Bad. This inspired countless variations of the same “Whatever you do, don’t search space movie 1992” warning.
What has the director said?
Directed by Morten Lindberg, the 26-minute short film was intended to be a twist on the blaxploitation genre.
“Extraterrestrial beings [from the planet Anus – yes, really] travel the galaxy to free men ‘oppressed’ by females to make way for an entirely-homosexual society,” the official synopsis reads.
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“Homosexuality has always interested me, as have black people,” the director explained in an interview with Elitisti.
“Of course it has a deeper meaning, but it’s not social criticism (we’re too smart to do anything like that). At that time, we had seen a lot of blaxploitation films, and we wanted to bring the subject with us to our time. Denmark is not a completely racism-free country, but racism is very low compared to, for example, the United States. We wanted to deal with topics that are taboo and squeeze them into one film.”
Public reaction and criticism
It doesn’t have a Rotten Tomatoes score, but the film did appear on the r/badmovies subreddit a few years ago. Make of that what you will.
“It’s a terrible film with an even worse title. It is a movie and it has a predominately Black cast FYI. I believe the writer was Scandinavian and touching on the blaxploitation film culture,” one Reddit user wrote.
“This film is a sh*tpost from a time when you actually had to take a blade and tape to film. Best known to me and a portion of the internet as the film behind the name of the troll group GNAA way back in the early slashdot days,” another commented.
The meme resurfaced in August 2024 after a clip on social media went viral, where someone plays a prank on their HR representative at work. You should definitely NOT encourage HR to Google “outer space movie 1992.” You may find yourself out of work if you do.
Whatever you do, don't do this. pic.twitter.com/EKeMsCJZTx
— 9mmSMG (@9mm_smg) August 19, 2024
In the meantime, check out the best movies you should actually watch this month, and TV shows streaming now. If you want some good outer space films, you can check our list of the best sci-fi movies, too.
