The Dallas Sword Guy meme stems from a viral incident during the May 2020 protests in Dallas, Texas, where a man brandishing a sword attempted to 'protect' a local business and was quickly overwhelmed by a crowd. The imagery of a lone man charging into a large group with an archaic weapon became a symbol of misguided bravado and inevitable failure. In internet culture, the template is used to represent someone bringing 'a knife to a gunfight' or an individual making a disastrously overconfident decision against insurmountable odds, often used in professional, social, or gaming contexts to highlight a massive power imbalance.