What Does 'Ningning Is The Maknae' Mean? The Viral Memes About The 'Aespa' K-Pop Idol Explained

Of all the fandoms online, the K-pop fandom is one that most outsiders don't necessarily want to get involved with.

K-pop stans are quick to defend their favorite idols and they'll got to any means to do so. One TikToker is learning that the hard way after being turned into a meme for saying that "Ningning is the maknae" and shouldn't have eaten her cake first.

But what is a "maknae" and why has the video inspired so many memes? Here's what you need to know.

What Does 'Ningning Is The Maknae' Mean?

In late November, a video of Ningning, a member of the K-pop group aespa, eating a piece of cake while the rest of the group prays went viral. Ningning is the youngest member of the group. In Korean culture, she would be known as the "maknae," meaning "youngest."

According to Korean culture, the maknae are supposed to eat their food last and the elders are meant to eat their food first. So, when Ningning eats the cake first, technically this could be seen as her disrespecting Korean culture. While most people saw this clip as nothing more than a little funny, one TikToker seemingly took it a bit further.

A day after the video started going viral, TikToker @ludicrousdonut posted a video that gained over 830,000 views in under a week.

In the video, the TikToker criticizes Ningning for eating the cake first. She says that, while she's not trying to be messy, "In Korea, you can't eat until the elders eat. Ningning is the maknae, which means she's the youngest, and the fact that she ate first is crazy."

The video went viral, especially among K-pop fans. It was reposted to X a few days after it was posted and really started to take off online. Since then, the TikToker has claimed she was just joking, but that hasn't done anything to stop the memes from popping up on sites like X and TikTok.

How Is 'Ningning Is The Maknae' Used In Memes?

The X repost inspired a wave of memes on both X and TikTok referencing @ludicrousdonut's video. Some TikTokers are using the audio from the video over fancam edits of Ningning. Some of these edits reinterpret the TikToker's line "she ate first" to refer to the slang term "she ate," essentially meaning "slay."

Others are using the video itself in memes, such as the original X repost, which is captioned, "me after my first month of learning korean on duolingo."

Other popular examples include the captions "me after I sing a K-pop song and I say one of the Korean words right" and "me after understanding a kpop lyric without having to look at the translation," essentially using the video to make jokes about being more understanding of Korean culture than they actually are.

For the full history of Ningning Is the Maknae, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information.