Too Damn High
Contents
About
“Too Damn High” is a meme based on the political slogan “The Rent Is Too Damn High,” drawn from a photo of New York gubernatorial candidate Jimmy McMillan raising his fist during a 2010 debate.
Origin
McMillan ran for governor of New York in 2010 as the founder of the Rent Is Too Damn High Party. At the gubernatorial debate on October 18th, 2010, he hammered the same line over and over, and The Daily Beast posted his debate remarks to YouTube that day, where the clip pulled millions of views.
A freeze frame of him with his fist raised got cut into a Quickmeme Advice Animal, and the earliest known macro landed on the /r/gaming subreddit on August 6th, 2011 with the caption “The mouse sensitivity is too damn high!” The clip also got the autotune treatment from the Gregory Brothers in November 2010.
Meaning
The line works as a catch-all complaint. Drop any grievance into “The X is too damn high” (or spin-offs like “too damn low” and “too damn nigh”) and you've got an instant gripe, whether it's about gas prices, a game's difficulty, or people misusing the word "POV."
The joke is that McMillan's real outrage gets redirected at trivial annoyances, and the format kept going long after the 2010 race as a dependable way to complain about pretty much anything.
Examples
Popularity
See also