Clickbait titling on YouTube is nothing new, as the platform’s most-subscribed star, Felix ‘PewDiePie’ Kjellberg, sought to address the proliferation of souped-up titles in order to drive clicks earlier this year. “If you don’t do it, you’re not going to get views,” he said of the practice at the time. “I can spend days on a video, and it will get less views than a video that was sh-t out in 10 minutes that has a better title.”
Now, a meme rocketing across the web hilariously pokes fun at the hyper-dramatic video titles that creators increasingly tend to employ. As a lot of clickbait occurs within the ‘Storytime’ video category — or sit-down vlogs in which creators recount particularly dramatic real-life moments, including Tana Mongeau‘s I Almost Died In An Uber and Lucas Cruikshank‘s Asked To Have A Threesome At Starbucks — the memes on Twitter seek to re-imagine the actual events that could’ve spawned these titles.
According to Know Your Meme, a website dedicated to documenting Internet phenomena, the clickbait meme originated last October with a tweet from user DrewIsTru, and then began to gain steam again in mid-December. Check out a few of the funniest iterations, as first spotted by New York and Teen, below:
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uber driver: *drives over pothole*
uber driver: sorry about that
Youtuber: pic.twitter.com/B92ngHenou
— sad girl °☾ (@Shadigna) December 17, 2016
*goes to a Catholic university’s frat party* youtuber: pic.twitter.com/0yYXMjKW57 — victoria💡 (@zallfranta) December 13, 2016
youtuber: you brought me diet coke instead of regular coke
waiter: oh i’m sorry about that
youtuber: pic.twitter.com/tlW1Ode3oq
— adam (@polaxrize) December 15, 2016
Me: hey is this where the line starts? YouTuber: pic.twitter.com/NNxMO0r6B0 — frank (@franktbh) December 15, 2016
person: it’s fine just wash out the dirt that’s in your eye and it’ll be back to normal.
youtuber: pic.twitter.com/6a5Qga45lN
— ㅤㅤㅤㅤ (@TEALPHIL) December 19, 2016
store announcement: the store will be closing in 15 minutes
youtuber: pic.twitter.com/vhbksnWuWG— sami (@samilarsson) December 14, 2016