Impostor of the Vent

Origin

The format is a parody of a parody. It derives from Panzer of the Lake — a long-running meme in which someone approaches a submerged tank and asks it for wisdom, and the tank answers in broken, cryptic English — which itself parodies the Arthurian Lady of the Lake.

The Among Us version emerged from a September 3, 2020 video by the YouTuber Matongchi, which took over 137,400 views in three weeks and was reuploaded to Twitter to 373,400 views, 16,100 retweets and 48,000 likes.

On September 16, 2020, a Redditor adapted it into the two-panel Panzer format: a red crewmate approaches a vent, an impostor emerges from it, and the crewmate asks for guidance. That post took 56,700 upvotes in a week.

What it means / how it’s used

The impostor functions as an oracle — dispensing observations about gaming, life, or nothing in particular, in the deliberately stilted register the Panzer format requires.

The deeper joke is self-directed. Among Us exploded in mid-2020 and generated an overwhelming volume of extremely low-effort memes — endless variations on “sus,” on venting, on the word “impostor” — to the point that the game’s meme output became more annoying than the game was popular.

“Impostor of the vent” is a parody of that flood. Its clumsy phrasing, its pointless setup, and its willingness to be exactly as low-effort as the memes it mocks are all deliberate. It is a meme about how tiresome a category of memes had become, made in the style of the memes in question.

How it spread

It spread rapidly through mid-to-late September 2020 across Reddit, Twitter and Facebook. Derivative versions took 41,000 and 43,000 upvotes within days of the original.

Its speed reflects the moment. Among Us was at peak saturation in September 2020, and a format that let people join in while signalling that they were tired of joining in was extremely welcome.

The Panzer of the Lake family as a whole has proved unusually generative, producing submerged-oracle variants across many communities — including Senpai of the Pool — each with its own half-hidden advisor.

Notable examples & variations

• Panzer of the Lake, the parent format.
• Senpai of the Pool and other submerged-oracle variants.
• Versions where the impostor gives genuinely good advice.
• Versions where the crewmate is immediately killed.
• Multi-panel exchanges extending the conversation.

Legacy / cultural impact

The format is a compact example of irony-layered meme culture — a joke whose subject is other jokes, built in the style it is mocking, and legible only to people who have seen enough of both to recognise what is happening.

It also captures something specific about Among Us. The game’s cultural moment was enormous and extremely short, and a large part of what people remember is not the game but the exhaustion of its memes. This format is the artifact of that exhaustion.