The Bureaucrat, the satirical new chess piece
The Bureaucrat. It can move to any unoccupied position on the board, but cannot capture pieces. It's just there to get in the way and slow things down.
Text content
You can add one more chess piece to the board. How does it move and what is it called?
Overview
This meme features a still of Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman from American Psycho as the background, with an overlaid screenshot of a Reddit discussion thread. The discussion asks the question: if you could add one new chess piece to the game, what would it be called and how would it move. The top comment responds with a satirical joke creating a new piece called 'The Bureaucrat' that can move anywhere on the board but cannot capture pieces, only existing to get in the way and slow the game down. The joke pokes fun at bureaucratic red tape, inefficiency, and how bureaucracy often hinders progress without adding any value.
Origin notes
This image was originally shared on 9GAG with the title 'Sounds pretty useful.' It is a user-created meme that combines a screenshot of a joke comment from a Reddit discussion thread with the popular Patrick Bateman still template, which is commonly used for humorous online content. The core joke originates from the Reddit comment thread shown in the screenshot.