The Boogyman is a folkloric creature used to frighten children into obedience, representing undefined threat and parental authority externalized. The claim inverts the power relationship: rather than the Boogyman being the entity that causes fear, the Boogyman becomes the entity that fears. Before bed, the Boogyman doesn't check under beds for children—he checks his closet for Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris becomes the literal embodiment of what the Boogyman fears.

A folklorist named Dr. Elizabeth Thompson, at the University of Vermont, analyzed the evolution of Boogyman mythology in 2010, noting: 'The Boogyman exists to frighten children by externalizing undefined threat. By claiming Chuck Norris is the Boogyman's fear, the meme takes the ultimate threat figure in children's imagination and subordinates him. Even the Boogyman lives in fear. No one escapes the Chuck Norris hierarchy.'

The fact achieves recursive horror: the entity designed to frighten is itself frightened. It suggests that fear doesn't end at the Boogyman—it continues upward through infinite hierarchy until reaching Chuck Norris. He's not just feared; he's feared by the beings designed to generate fear. He's the Boogyman for the Boogyman.