Beyond cementing themselves as Twitter’s villains du jour, the boaters who started the viral Montgomery Melee boat fight have emerged as the latest embodiment of the “How It Started vs. How It's Going” meme.


Photos claiming to depict the violent crew before and after they opted to pick the infamous fight began making the rounds on Twitter on Monday, serving as the ordeal’s latest cautionary tale on being a jerk.


“These fools were having such a lovely day on their boat and then they decided to FAFO and FAFO they did,” meme page @WUTangKids captioned their upload of a photo purportedly depicting the group smiling on a boat.



But as we all know, those grins didn’t last long. Shortly after that image was allegedly snapped, the boaters began harassing a Black dock employee who asked them to move their pontoon, a request they did not take to kindly. The riders’ unwarranted aggression sparked an all-out brawl complete with tackling, chair smacking, one man — nay, hero — bravely swimming to the dock to defend the worker’s honor, and of course, a few well-deserved arrests.


“And that’s how it went,” they captioned a second photo appearing to depict the same group sitting on the dock sporting nothing but their swim trunks and handcuffs. But @WUTangKids was far from alone in celebrating the entitled boaters’ well-deserved fall from grace.



“This made me disproportionately happy. I’m okay with that,” wrote @JungleJean.


“Mixing racism, alcohol, and entitlement can be hazardous for one's health,” joked @JJintheUS.


“This is the purest elixir of Schadenfreude,” added @jsargentr with a close-up shot of one of the boaters' sad, sunburned faces.



So take it from their glum expressions, shackled limbs, and impending legal bills: Don’t be a fucking asshole.