Cultural impact
Thanos and his "snap" spawned much audience enthusiasm. The website DidThanosKill.Me was created for fans to see if they would have been spared by Thanos or not by simply telling them either "You were spared by Thanos" or "You were slain by Thanos". The ending of Infinity War also spawned the creation of the Reddit subreddit, /r/thanosdidnothingwrong. A user within the subreddit suggested that half of the approximately 20,000 subscribers at the time be banned from the subreddit, in order to mimic the events of the film. After the community agreed to the measure, the moderators approached Reddit's administrators to see if the mass ban would be possible. Once the administrators agreed to the random ban of half the subscribers, it was set to occur on July 9, 2018. Notice of the impending ban made the subreddit's subscribers increase to over 700,000, including both of the Russo brothers. Ahead of the ban, Brolin posted a video saying "Here we go, Reddit users", and ending it with a snap. Over 60,000 people watched a live Twitch stream of the ban occurring, which lasted several hours. The ban of over 300,000 accounts, which included Anthony Russo, was the largest in Reddit's history. Those banned then gathered in the new subreddit, /r/inthesoulstone. One Reddit user who participated described the ban as embodying "the spirit of the Internet" with people "banding together, en masse, around something relatively meaningless but somehow decidedly awesome and hilarious". Andrew Tigani of Screen Rant said this showed "how impactful the film has already become to pop culture. It is also a testament to how valuable fan interaction can be via social media".
A popular tongue-in-cheek fan theory regarding Thanos' defeat in Endgame before the film's release claimed that Thanos would be killed by Ant-Man entering his anus and expanding himself within Thanos' body, jokingly referred to by the portmanteau "Thanus", going onto become a widespread Internet meme. After the film was released and proved the theory wrong, Christopher Markus revealed that due to the strong nature of the Titans, Ant-Man would have been unable to expand himself as he would be crushed by the walls of Thanos' rectum. In 2022, The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke confirmed that a character introduced in season three, Termite, was a parody of Ant-Man, and his actions of killing people by shrinking to enter their bodies and expanding was partially inspired by "Thanus".
Following the premiere of Endgame, Google included a clickable icon of the Infinity Gauntlet in Google Search results for "Thanos" or "Infinity Gauntlet" as an Easter egg. The icon, when clicked, made a finger-snapping motion before half of the search results disappeared, akin to the disappearance of characters following the Blip. The disappearance of the search results could also be reversed, shown by the use of the Time Stone in the Infinity Gauntlet icon.
During the 2020 United States presidential election campaign, a Twitter account affiliated with the 2020 Trump campaign posted an Internet meme of then-incumbent U.S. President Donald Trump superimposed on a clip of Thanos declaring himself "inevitable" in Endgame, with the meme reposted by Trump's own Instagram account. Thanos creator Jim Starlin subsequently criticized Trump, saying he "actually enjoys comparing himself to a mass murderer". In August 2020, Starlin revealed a new villain for an issue of Dreadstar Returns named King Plunddo Tram that heavily resembled Trump, with Plunddo Tram being an anagram of Donald Trump. In the issue, Tram is beheaded, with Starlin saying "a certain politician using a character of mine in one of his political ads may have riled me a bit. I figured he was open game at that point".
In March 2021, to congratulate James Cameron on Avatar (2009) regaining the title as the number one film of all-time at the worldwide box office over Endgame, the Russo brothers used an image with Thanos' armor scarecrow and the Avengers' logo dusting away into the Avatar logo.
In February 2023, during an interview in Time, Cameron gave statements admitting that he has a personal connection with Thanos. At one point in their conversation, Cameron shared that Thanos "had a pretty viable answer" to his problem, one that parallels the filmmaker's environmental activism: "I can relate to Thanos... I thought I had a pretty viable answer. The problem is that no one is going to raise their hand to volunteer to be the half that has to leave".
After the release of Infinity War, scientific studies were published relating to the Snap, focusing on a variety of aspects including whether it would be possible for Thanos to even snap his fingers while wearing the Infinity Gauntlet. The 2021 study concluded that it would not be physically possible due to the lack of friction between the metal surface of the Gauntlet. A study published in 2020 focused on the ability to control matter as Thanos does while using the Infinity Stones. The researchers found that on a macroscopic level, someone would need a large amount of energy to control matter, similarly to the Stones. However, microscopically scientists can mimic Thanos' control of matter at the colloidal level. The researchers were able to make billions of colloidal particles with changeable responsiveness, patchiness, shapes, and sizes by manipulating them using triggers, including temperature, pH, and light.
