Me In Public / My Headphones
TL;DR · OriginThe format stacks two images. On top, labelled "Me in public," sits a photo of someone looking thoroughly intimidating; underneath, labelled "My headphones," sits a screensho…
Origin
The format stacks two images. On top, labelled "Me in public," sits a photo of someone looking thoroughly intimidating; underneath, labelled "My headphones," sits a screenshot of whatever they are actually listening to. The entire joke is the gap between the projected image and the actual taste.
The top image is the French rapper JNR. It comes from Le Pire Stagiaire ("The Worst Intern"), a French prank show hosted by the comedian Greg Guillotin; in an episode posted to YouTube on June 29th, 2020, Guillotin poses as an intern and behaves obnoxiously at JNR's expense. That video passed 11 million YouTube views. The meme version of the image has AirPods photoshopped in.
Spread
The format itself was created on August 4th, 2020. According to Know Your Meme's account, the first post came from Twitter user @NotLineMary, pairing the AirPods-edited JNR image with a screenshot of Pop Smoke's "44 BullDog." That post itself stayed small, at roughly 90 retweets and 310 likes.
What detonated the format were the follow-ups that same day. A version by @KeyWilliamss swapping in a Katy Perry track passed 4,400 retweets and 18,000 likes, and one by @MatthewACherry using Owl City's "Fireflies" reached 6,700 retweets and 27,000 likes.
The meme was, in other words, finished within a day. One post proposed the format, and within hours other users had turned it into a competition to find the most incongruous possible song. With the top image fixed and only the bottom half to swap, there was effectively no barrier to entry.
How it is used
- As a self-disclosure about the distance between how one looks and what one listens to
- As a reversal joke: the frightening-looking person has gentle taste
- As a game of posting swap after swap, competing on song choice
- Extended more broadly as a figure for anything whose outside and inside do not match
Sources
- Know Your Meme, "Me In Public / My Headphones" — the June 29th, 2020 Le Pire Stagiaire episode and its view count, the August 4th, 2020 first post by @NotLineMary with its song and metrics, and the same-day @KeyWilliamss and @MatthewACherry posts
