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Staredad meme template

Staredad is a meme format on WhatiMeme. Someone, usually a kid, asks a simple everyday question and gets ignored. They try again. The dad answers with an unblinking stare and a line that is way too intense, literal, grim, or nonsensical for the question. It is used for awkward dad energy, deadpan non-answers, and replies that refuse to match the mood of the ask.

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A hand-drawn comic with four small panels on top and one large panel below, all with empty speech bubbles. A blond child yells in a doorway with motion lines. Next, a dark-haired adult looks down and away. Then the child looks worried. Then a man with wild black hair, round glasses, and a thick mustache stares with huge eyes. The bottom panel is a close-up of that same man staring blankly while holding a yellow paper, with a large empty speech bubble beside his face.

How to write this meme

Keep the child’s lines ordinary and short. Use the small middle bubble as a brush-off or a silence, not a second joke. Put the entire punchline in the bottom stare line, and make that reply too intense, too literal, or weirdly calm for the question.

Caption zones

  • Kid outburst — The child's loud question, inside the top-left bubble. The child's face, eyes, and mouth stay below the bubble.
  • Dad mutter — A very short non-answer, inside the second panel's bubble. Do not cover the seated figure.
  • Kid follow-up — A one- or two-word check that the child was heard, inside the third panel's bubble. Do not cover the child's face.
  • Dad reply — The punchline, inside the bottom-left bubble. Do not cover the father's eyes or mustache.

Example captions

  • Kid outburst: Dad, what’s for dinner?
  • Dad mutter: ...
  • Kid follow-up: Dad?
  • Dad reply: Regret. Served cold.

A normal dinner ask sets up a one-word grim answer, and the stare sells it as completely serious.

  • Kid outburst: The Wi-Fi is down
  • Dad mutter: Not now.
  • Kid follow-up: Dad?
  • Dad reply: Good. Sit with your thoughts.

The dismissal makes the follow-up feel desperate, then the stare turns an outage into a moral lesson.

  • Kid outburst: Can we get a dog?
  • Dad mutter: We had one.
  • Kid follow-up: We did?
  • Dad reply: He asked too many questions.

Each bubble escalates. The mutter plants a mystery, the kid reacts, and the stare line pays it off.

  • Kid outburst: I got a B plus!
  • Dad mutter: ...
  • Kid follow-up: Proud?
  • Dad reply: Pride is a trap. Stay average.

The kid wants a normal congratulations. The stare replaces it with unhelpful philosophy.

  • Kid outburst: Are monsters real?
  • Dad mutter: Keep asking.
  • Kid follow-up: Are they?
  • Dad reply: They file taxes. Don’t wave.

A childhood fear gets a bureaucratic, deadpan answer that is scary only because he will not blink.

Common mistakes

  • Writing a helpful, normal dad answer
  • Making every bubble equally funny so the stare has no payoff
  • Stuffing a long story into the tiny middle bubbles
  • Explaining that he is staring instead of letting the line be the joke
  • Forgetting the kid has to sound innocent for the contrast to work

Also known as

Stare Dad · Question Hmmm

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