Riker’s Dad Joke Breaks Data! 🖖😂

Riker’s “hard drive” dad joke pushes Data to the limit in this 28-second AI-animated Star Trek: TNG meme! Trek fans, share your favorite Riker puns in the comments! Like, subscribe, and share for more fun clips like this.

History of Star Trek TNG Dad Joke Memes
Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG), airing from 1987 to 1994, became a meme goldmine thanks to its earnest characters and campy sci-fi charm, perfect for dad joke humor. Early internet culture in the late 1990s and 2000s saw TNG memes emerge on forums like Trek BBS and YTMND, where fans paired stills of Picard’s iconic facepalm (from “Deja Q,” 1990) or Riker’s swagger with groan-worthy puns. Dad joke memes, blending TNG’s serious tone with cheesy wordplay, took off as fans mocked the show’s technobabble and character quirks.
By the 2010s, social media platforms like Reddit and Tumblr amplified TNG dad joke memes. A 2013 YouTube video, “Riker sits down,” with nearly 3.5 million views, sparked puns about his chair-mounting style, like “Riker doesn’t sit, he mounts!” Data, with his literal-minded android logic, became a meme star for misunderstanding human humor, as seen in episodes like “Phantasms” (1993), where his nightmares fueled absurd stills. Reddit threads, like a 2022 r/startrek post with 42 comments, shared puns such as “Make it sew, Number One” for Picard’s broken sewing machine, cementing dad jokes as a Trek fan staple.
The Riker-Data dynamic, like in this clip’s “hard drive” pun, thrives in memes because Riker’s cocky delivery and Data’s deadpan reactions amplify the cringe. Sites like Cheezburger and ScreenRant have since compiled lists, like “35 Star Trek Puns and Dad Jokes” (2024), celebrating lines that make even Vulcans wince. Today, TNG dad joke memes live on X, Instagram, and TikTok, keeping the Enterprise’s legacy boldly punning where no joke has gone before.