It’s Friday. It’s Halloween. We’re wearing our Shane, the Walmart Deli employee, costume for this post.

Who is Shane?

Shane is either (1) an actual hapless but witty Walmart Deli employee whose antics have turned into an internet meme (translation: “gone viral” with creative twists and turns), or (2) a fictitious but witty Walmart Deli employee who has turned into an internet meme. (While “2” is highly probable, we’re going to hang on to #1 with Santa-like innocence.)

The character (or real person) Shane is forever getting in trouble with store management for telling customers things like, “yes, it’s true that Walmart keeps all of the good stuff in the back” or adding signs to food in the deli case like “swinecraft” on the sliced ham.

Shane’s friend (the other character or real person) is another deli employee who snaps photos of the messages managers are constantly writing on the employee whiteboard instructing Shane to stop his most recent embarrassing breach of Walmart policy or common sense.

The Shame meme

As with all funny internet things, “Shaneisms” are now mimicked by legions of funny (and not-so-funny) people who post them on the Reddit “Sub-Reddit” (a topic forum) for ““Shaneisms” (Warning: Some of which are not SFW and many of which aren’t funny either.).

Why people love Shane

Shane fits in a long tradition of corporation-spoofing humor that stretches from Dagwood to Dilbert to Michael Scott. Shane captures a couple of common threads in the genre: He’s the straight man who enables a inside-corporate-joke punchline, and he’s the every-man who allows Shaneism creators to express their frustrations of working in a giant corporation, without having to name the company where they work.

Here are just a few Shaneisms as a treat for Halloween

Stop putting stuffed toys in the display case to show customers what kind of animal the meat comes from.

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Shane. Stop putting quotations around the word fresh at the deli.

Shane, please stop telling the customers that the bags of ice are “Imported from Iceland”

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Shane, customers do not need a membership card to order a club sandwich.

Shane, stop using the intercom to say ‘only you can hear me’

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(via: Chezburger.com)

(Photo: Thinkstock)

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