What Is 'Balkan Rage' And What's With All The Brainrot TikToks About 'Noradrenaline'? The Meme Explained

TikTok users are drawn to brainrot memes like moths to a flame, and the Balkan rage trend is emblematic of this fact. What began as an inside joke among Eastern European TikTokers quickly became an overdone "cringe" meme paired with other silly buzzwords at the time.

But is there any substance to the idea of "Balkan Rage" or is the term solely a vehicle for TikTokers to signify their own ironic tastes in subpar memes? Here's a look at how the phrase was popularized on the video-sharing app in late 2024.

Where Did The Phrase 'Balkan Rage' Originate?

The largely mountainous Balkan regions of Europe, stretching from Bulgaria to Slovenia, are known for containing various smaller countries that often find themselves in conflict with each other, despite once being part of the same states. Balkan memes often reflect this intra-community bickering with younger and often diasporic Eastern Europeans bonding over several cultural similarities with each other.

"Balkan rage" is one such concept that grew popular among Eastern European women on TikTok, with many TikTokers posting videos about how most people can't handle Balkan female rage. TikToker @gabrielamaksimovaa posted one such video back in December 2022, gathering over 400,000 plays. In 2024, TikToker @jelenakarleusa's compilation of Balkan female rage moments gathered over 2 million plays.

What's Up With All The Memes About 'Balkan Rage' On TikTok?

Sometime in late August 2024, a number of TikTokers began making and sharing videos combining several trending brainrot memes at the time. The earliest such post was from August 27th, 2024, when @low_quality_stan91 posted a Jonkler meme captioned, "balkan rage + zimbawean flicker munting + equatorial guinea sandpaper edging."

How Did The Balkan Rage Meme Spread On TikTok?

By September 2024, "Balkan rage" memes had saturated TikTok. TikToker @haolfy posted a meme that rattled off a number of viral TikTok trends, as if to joke that simply uttering a viral phrase can illicit a laugh in today's brainrot economy. Meanwhile, @gergthesupreme posted a powerscaling meme to show how well "Balkan rage" holds up against other viral memes like noradrenaline.

But not everyone was pleased with the meme trend. It appears as though it is largely non-Balkan people sharing jokes about "Balkan rage," given that people actually from the region are mortified that it has become such a popular trend. In early September 2024, TikToker @tarxyzi posted a meme about how embarrassing they find the "Balkan rage" trend to be, gathering over 500,000 plays in a month.

For the full history of "Balkan rage," be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information.