Explaining TikTok brainrot memes

We have reached the brainrot stage of the internet. Memes have become memes on memes, often with so much lore that it becomes nearly impossible to parse together the meaning if you weren’t there for the meme’s inception. This phenomenon has become as evident as ever with the #corecore and #floptok trends currently sweeping TikTok. These videos are accumulations of as many meme references as possible, somehow stringing sentences together that would have been completely incoherent just two years ago. 

If you’re not as chronically online as I am, you may understandably find yourself dazed and confused in the face of one of these videos. In light of that, I’m here to break down the most popular and referenced memes of today, so you too can appreciate this unique yet rewarding sense of humor. 

Donatella VERSACE 💜: 

This is a crucial place to start. Bella Hadid, Palestinian American fashion model and lifelong activist, has used her Instagram for pro-Palestinian advocacy for years. This Valentine’s Day she posted an image of a candy heart that said “Will you free my Palestine?” printed onto a candy heart. It was on a post with the same image in 2022 that this meme was born. Fashion designer and frequent Instagram user Donatella Versace simply commented “Donatella VERSACE 💜.” This comment, while on the surface so simple and unassuming, is deeply hilarious. Why would she comment her name on such a serious post that is unrelated to her? The mild absurdity and out-of-place tone made it so awkwardly funny that it remains completely iconic on and off the internet. 

This format — capitalizing the final word of a phrase followed by a purple heart — is essential to using and understanding the internet meme language of TikTok comment sections today. This comment section on this TikTok, which also happens to reference a good chunk of the memes explained below, exemplifies the use of “this FORMAT 💜.”

Onika Burgers:

In 2023, Pop Base, a notorious pop-centric X account, tweeted a photo that North West, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s daughter, drew of her grandmother, Kris Jenner. In response, Twitter user @noahsrev tweeted “why she ate,” meaning North did a good job with the drawing.  It is believed that at this time Noah was involved in Nicki Minaj (or Barb) stan Twitter, known to be one of the more intense sides of stan Twitter, and crucial context for the intensity of what is to come.

In response to Noah’s “why she ate” reply, Twitter user @sexxtbook tweeted “she=onika ate=burgers.” Let’s try to break it down.  Minaj’s birth name is Onika, and “ate” in this context followed by “=burgers” is an attempt to call Minaj fat. The attempted attack on  Minaj, in response to a Minaj stan, seems to be “Onika ate burgers.” But it’s not. When you actually swap the words around with Noah’s original reply, the sentence becomes “Why Onika burgers.”

Why are the inserts so out of order and incoherent? What does any of it have to do with North West? This disconnect and completely out-of-context response makes the tweet popular to this day in the online world.

What I do:

This one is pretty simple. Funny Marco, a YouTube creator who used to make prank content, posted a video in 2019 going around a grocery store and berating customers under the guise that they had done something wrong without saying what they did. In the now so often quoted interaction, Marco went up to a woman and told her, “You know you was wrong for what you did,” to which she responded, “What I do?” with an expression of confusion and bafflement. Marco was so amused by her reaction that he breaks character and laughs, something he doesn’t often do in these videos. We should also question if part of the popularity of this meme is based on racism. It is possible some find the “humor” lies in the subject — Jade Nguyen, an Asian woman — speaking in African-American Vernacular English instead of Marco’s failed prank.

The clip has made a massive resurgence recently, and is often paired with a photo of Nguyen posing in a driveway. This reference is pretty simple to use and is often lumped in with the rest of these chronically online moments due to its conciseness.

Mama, a girl behind you:

Another simple yet hilarious one. This comes from a video a little girl recorded of her mom posing in their yard, when Snapchat inserts a 3D girl avatar behind the mother. The little girl filming worriedly says “Mommy, mama, a girl behind you,” not understanding that it’s a feature of the filter.

The audio of this video is extremely popular and is often used to indicate scary things in a frame or get lumped in with all of the other trending memes and phrases. If you want to apply your new knowledge, this is a great one to bust out around your terminally online friends when anybody enters a room in real life or when anything creepy happens in an online circle.

Ellie and Mason house:

Ellie and Mason house, a personal favorite of mine, is trending massively right now and has been reposted repeatedly for a couple of years. The trend comes from a screenshot of a text conversation a little girl had with her mother, in which she asks to go to her friends Ellie and Mason’s house. She accompanies this with a photo of her sobbing, probably hoping that will convince her mother to let her go. The second, not-as-popular response shows her mom telling her no, and the little girl sending another weeping photo.

The screenshot itself is amusing and shows both the little girl’s sense of humor and desperation to go to her friend’s house. For years I’ve consistently liked this photo when it’s been reposted on Instagram, and I’m glad it’s having its moment again in the online sphere.

Your cat is like, ‘oh no no no no, you’re not getting a dog:’

This is possibly the most awkwardly funny meme on this list. This originated from an older TikTok trend where people would say things they wanted to do while throwing pens towards a cup. If they landed the pen in the cup, they would presumably do that thing, no matter the implications. In this video, a woman asks “Should I get a dog?” and her pen lands in the cup. Her cat then enters the frame and takes the pen out of the cup. 

In a stitch response to the original, a woman said, “Your cat is like, ‘oh no no no no, we’re not getting a dog, don’t even think about it girl.’” Many find making a whole video for such a short response unnecessary, making the video’s very existence humorous. To claims that despite it is fun, a viewer finds it “awkward,” Tiky Perez, the woman in question, responds that she “(doesn’t) care.” If you go to her page, you can see that, despite the video being almost three years old, Perez replies to its comments section to this day.

These are some of the most popular circulating TikTok memes, hopefully broken down in a digestible way. These trends will come and go — many are already being deemed too popular and no longer funny. While these do stay relevant, however, refer to this article for the context of their origins, helping to maintain footing in a constantly changing and overwhelming online world.

Daily Arts Writer Campbell Johns can be reached at caajohns@umich.edu.

Related articles