Overview
- The comparison began in early 2021 with an X post on January 9, 2021, that pictured Erling Haaland as Dragon Ball Z’s Super Buu and slowly circulated through edits and fan art over the next five years.
- The meme surged during the 2026 FIFA World Cup as Haaland’s performances and celebrations drew mass attention and repeated side-by-side images and edits.
- Haaland’s brief reply on Instagram on July 6, 2026 — “I mean I don’t disagree” — was widely shared as a tacit endorsement and caused a fresh spike in screenshots and commentary across platforms.
- Fans have produced high-engagement content including side-by-side comparisons, fan art, mock action-figure concepts and viral videos, with some posts drawing tens of thousands of likes and hundreds of thousands of views.
- Media frame the trend as part of a broader sports-internet habit of likening players to fictional characters, and Haaland’s acknowledgement could cement the meme’s place in his public image and fuel further fan creativity and merchandising interest.