Futurama fans are retaliating against Netflix’s removal of the show in the best way

Nearly all of Futurama has been removed from Netflix and fans of the show aren’t taking it very well.

People have been posting a number of memes and videos — a perfect fit for the series — to show their displeasure with Netflix’s removal of the first five seasons. None, however, are as popular or as perfect as this particular joke.

Included as part of Futurama: Bender’s Game DVD, which was released in 2008. It was the third of four straight-to-DVD Futurama movies that helped make up the show’s fifth season. On the DVD, Bender parodies a popular anti-piracy message that included propositions like, “You wouldn’t steal a car, so why would you download a movie?”

The parody has been posted multiple times on Reddit and has been followed up with other “prophetic” images from the show’s earlier seasons. Like this particular caption, which introduced the fifth episode of season two.

Of course, these weren’t the only pieces of media people used to voice their displeasure. Futurama has always been more than just a show; in the age of online culture, it became a go-to for reaction GIFs and memes. One of the more popular, called upon reaction GIFs that’s been used since Netflix removed the show is the one of Professor Farnsworth proclaiming that he doesn’t want to live on this planet anymore.

When they start taking seasons of Futurama off Netflix. pic.twitter.com/w0lbt6T27T — Kyle Kessell (@KyleKessell) July 3, 2017

The most interesting aspect of watching people react to Futurama leaving Netflix — including an entire community of fans who fall asleep to the show at night and are concerned about what to do now that it’s gone — is seeing just how vital Futurama played in internet culture and conversation. Any of the GIFs or memes that have been posted are easily recognizable, much like The Simpsons or Arrested Development. Futurama wasn’t just a popular animated series, but became one of the internet’s own.

Most of Futurama has left Netflix pic.twitter.com/KHdTCOBgGv — annie (@aethelnar) July 3, 2017

As communication online became more image and video based, with Vines, GIFs, JPEGs and videos being used to convey a sentiment, Futurama found an entirely new audience. Those who hadn’t watched the show when it first debuted in 1999 found a new reason to dig into it — understanding the memes they were seeing pop up on Tumblr, Reddit, 4Chan and Twitter.

Futurama became so popular online — and found a new, sizable audience — that it garnered its own version of the Frinkiac, a Simpsons-based meme generator. This version was called the Morbotron and it was built exclusively for Futurama.

As people look for ways to voice their disappointment with the lack of Futurama episodes, using memes inspired from the show is more than a good idea; it’s the only one that makes sense.

The first five seasons of Futurama, for those looking, is currently unavailable on both Netflix and Hulu.