Marines are joked about as “eating crayons” because of a long‑running military meme that stereotypes them as tough but not very smart, like big kids who would literally eat school supplies.

Where the joke comes from

  • The crayon‑eating Marine trope grew out of interservice rivalry in the U.S. military, where each branch teases the others with exaggerated stereotypes.
  • For Marines, the stereotype is low intelligence, so the joke imagines them confusing crayons and glue for food and happily eating them.

When it started and went viral

  • The meme shows up online in the early 2010s and really takes off around 2014–2016 on military humor pages and Facebook groups parodying the services.
  • One widely cited gag involves Army soldiers giving a Marine an MRE “filled” with crayons and glue, and the Marine immediately eating them, which helped push the joke into mainstream military meme culture.

How Marines reacted

  • Instead of being offended, many Marines lean into the joke as self‑deprecating humor, treating “crayon eater” as a kind of chaotic badge of honor.
  • Marines have been known to eat actual crayons as a gag at unit events, balls, graduations, and on social media, and there are even novelty “edible crayons” marketed at Marines.

Modern meme and products

  • The phrase “why do they say Marines eat crayons” now shows up constantly in memes, Reddit threads, and TikTok/YouTube bits explaining the joke to civilians or new service members.
  • The meme got so big that Marine‑themed brands and joke gift shops sell “crayon eater” merch and snacks, and the official Marine Corps social media has referenced the trope in tongue‑in‑cheek posts like a National Crayon Day video.

So do Marines actually eat crayons?

  • In reality, it is just a running joke; Marines do not literally subsist on crayons, and when anyone does eat one, it is for the meme and the laugh, not because they think it is food.
  • The whole thing blends rivalry, dark military humor, and Marine pride: the stereotype says “crayon eater,” and the Marines’ response is basically, “Sure, and we’ll own it.”

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