That’s Uncle Matt to you.
HBO Max

Could Matt LeBlanc be any more likable in Friends: The Reunion? Apparently not, if Matt as meme is any indication.

Now that Friends fans have had a few days to watch the HBO Max special, they’ve dubbed the actor who played Joey Tribbiani everyone’s favorite uncle. Everyone’s favorite Irish uncle, to be precise, as Irish Twitter has decided the 53-year-old teddy bear of a guy gives off serious Irish uncle vibes. Especially in one shot that shows him seated, arms crossed, legs stretched in front of him, and wearing a striped, button-down short-sleeved shirt and a relaxed smile.

Wrote one Twitter user from Ireland, “And you paid for them jeans like that ya did, with all them holes already in them?”

In another caption, Uncle Matt poses this question: “And who’s this lad ye do be listenin ta, Post Mahone is it?”

The Matt-as-uncle meme comes across as a loving tribute to the avuncular actor, who delivers lingering hugs to his former castmates and channels genuine warmth and affection for them. In her roundup of the show’s most memorable moments, my CNET colleague Gael Fashingbauer Cooper calls him “the hero of the reunion for keeping things light when they could get teary.”

Indeed, he’s central to some of the show’s most heartfelt moments, including one when LeBlanc and Matthew Perry plop down in side-by-side leather lounge chairs just like they did all those years ago like buds Joey and Chandler. “Aww, Matty, it’s good to see you, man,” Perry tells LeBlanc. The exchange has added poignancy given Perry has battled addiction and other health problems. It’s good to see the old pals back together again.

But it’s not just fans of the show enjoying Matt LeBlanc as meme.

“Never had nor do I have much time for Friends, but Matt Le Blanc as the stereotypical Irish oul lad with bootcut jeans, brown loafers and the shite Superdry shirt he got for Xmas five years ago is one of my favourite things of the last 15 months,” one Twitter user wrote. Even the Dublin Airport got in on the fun.