“The stand user could be anyone” is a running JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure fandom joke that turned into a full-on meme format and a broader shorthand for “the obviously weird guy is definitely the culprit.”

What “the stand user could be anyone” means

In JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, characters sometimes say that the enemy stand user could be anyone in the crowd, while the scene clearly shows someone dressed in an absurdly flamboyant outfit striking a bizarre pose.

Fans turned this into a meme about how it’s always the most over-designed, weird-looking person who is secretly the “stand user.”

“The Stand User could be anyone”
Camera pans to a guy in a skin‑tight neon suit, impossible hair, and a JoJo pose.

How the meme started

  • The phrase shows up as a fandom in-joke in JoJo communities around 2019.
  • One early popular example was a Reddit post with normal-looking people plus a flamboyantly dressed Shrek labeled “the stand user,” captioned “the stand user could be anyone.”
  • From late 2019 onward, JoJo meme subreddits kept repeating the joke: “The stand user could be anyone” followed by an image where the “enemy” is comically obvious.

Know Your Meme summarizes it as a catchphrase used “to indicate people or characters that dress extravagantly like the stand users from the anime and manga series.”

How it’s used online now

The phrase “the stand user could be anyone” gets dropped on:

  • Reddit JoJo subs like r/ShitPostCrusaders, where posts show a crowd plus one person in outrageously JoJo-esque fashion.
  • TikTok and short-form video , often on fashion-show clips or streetwear fits: normal runway models plus one person whose outfit screams “anime villain,” with the caption “the stand user could be anyone.”
  • Cross-fandom jokes , where any obviously eccentric character (from other anime, games, or even real life celebrities) gets framed as “the stand user.”

A recent wave of TikTok edits in 2024 helped push the meme back into circulation, especially pairing it with footage of models in extreme outfits.

Forum-style mini breakdown

If you were making a “Quick Scoop” style post about this trending topic, it could hit angles like:

  1. What the phrase references
    • It’s rooted in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure’s habit of hiding stand users “in plain sight” while making them the least subtle characters on screen.
  1. Why it’s funny
    • The humor comes from the disconnect between the dialogue (“it could be anyone”) and what the audience actually sees (one person who looks like they walked out of a high-fashion alien runway show).
  1. Why it resonates in 2020s internet culture
    • Anime aesthetics and loud, experimental fashion are mainstream now, so “the stand user could be anyone” doubles as a playful nod to the idea that the most stylish or eccentric person in the room is secretly the protagonist—or the villain.
  1. How communities play with it
    • Comment chains riff on it with escalating bits like “It could be you / It could be me / It could even be—BOOM,” blending JoJo with Team Fortress 2–style humor.

SEO-style quick facts (for a blog post)

  • Main phrase: “the stand user could be anyone”
  • Topic type: Light, fandom meme, fun forum discussion.
  • Origin: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure fandom, popularized on Reddit in 2019.
  • Latest waves: Resurfaced on TikTok and YouTube edits through 2023–2024 using runway and streetwear footage.

TL;DR: “The stand user could be anyone” is a JoJo meme used to jokingly point at the most outrageously dressed or posed person in a scene and imply they’re secretly the stand user.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.