A Large Boulder The Size Of A Small Boulder is a Twitter catchphrase from a January 2020 roadblock warning by Colorado's San Miguel Sheriff account. The tautological description of a boulder was mocked and remixed heavily within 24 hours, turning a routine traffic alert into one of the most quoted lines of that week.
Origin
On January 27th, 2020, the @SheriffAlert account posted a photo of a snow-dusted stretch of Colorado Highway 145 at mile marker 78 near Silverpick Road, with the caption noting a "Large boulder the size of a small boulder" was blocking the east-bound lane and asking drivers to watch for emergency vehicles[1]. The wording drew over 162,800 likes and 31,400 retweets within a single day[3].
The San Miguel Sheriff's Office covers the Telluride area of southwestern Colorado, and the alert itself was a routine traffic notification before commenters zeroed in on the phrasing[1].
- Platform: Twitter
- Creator: @SheriffAlert (San Miguel Sheriff's Office)
- Date: 2020
Overview
A Large Boulder The Size Of A Small Boulder is a phrasal gaffe from a January 2020 tweet by the San Miguel Sheriff's Office in Colorado, warning drivers about a rock blocking Highway 145[1]. The line reads as an unintentional tautology, comparing the boulder's size to another boulder rather than any useful reference object, and Twitter latched onto it almost immediately[3].
The joke is entirely in the wording. The original photo shows a genuinely large rock sitting in a snowy road, so users spun the caption into shape jokes, identity gags, and captioned reaction posts within hours of the alert going out[2][3].
How It Spread
Later that same day, @GPollowitz quote-tweeted the original with "this small boulder identifies as a large boulder," pulling in more than 1,800 likes and 250 retweets in a day[4]. Around the same time, @austin_mcbrown posted a mock stock chart labeled "science" with the caption "Man that there boulder is so large it looks kinda small," which picked up around 6,900 likes[2].
On January 28th, 2020, @devon__palmer tweeted "Everybody gangster until the large boulder the size of a small boulder shows up," fitting the line into the popular "everybody gangster until" template and gaining about 4,700 likes and 880 retweets in a day[5]. The catchphrase kept circulating as a shorthand for tautological or self-referential descriptions and is still pulled out whenever an official account posts an unintentionally funny alert[3].
How to Use
The catchphrase is typically deployed as a reply or quote-tweet whenever someone describes an object by comparing it to itself, or as a caption on any photo of an oddly obvious hazard. A common convention is to swap "boulder" for the actual object while keeping the "[X] the size of a small [X]" structure intact for the joke to land.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is A Large Boulder The Size Of A Small Boulder?
It is a viral Twitter catchphrase from a January 27th, 2020 tweet by Colorado's San Miguel Sheriff account describing a boulder blocking Highway 145[1].
Where did A Large Boulder The Size Of A Small Boulder come from?
It came from @SheriffAlert, the official Twitter account of the San Miguel Sheriff's Office in southwestern Colorado, in a roadblock warning post[1][3].
What does A Large Boulder The Size Of A Small Boulder mean?
It is a tautology: the boulder's size is described by comparing it to another boulder, which gives no real information and reads as accidentally funny[3].
How do you use A Large Boulder The Size Of A Small Boulder?
People typically quote-tweet or caption images with the phrase, often swapping the object while keeping the self-referential "the size of a small [X]" structure, as @devon__palmer did with the "everybody gangster until" format[5].
Is A Large Boulder The Size Of A Small Boulder still popular?
It is a classic 2020 Twitter moment that still gets referenced when official accounts post unintentionally funny alerts, though the peak virality was the 24 hours after the original post[1][3].
