What Is 'Hood Irony?' The TikTok Trend And Chaotic Meme Videos Explained

At this point in time, meme enjoyers are no strangers to hood irony. Especially on TikTok, chaotic and disturbing greenscreen silhouettes take up the vast majority of these videos, satirizing the "hood" comedy aesthetic that has been online for decades.

Although it's become a prevalent TikTok trend under the name hood lobotomy, the history of ironic "hood" memes stretches far back to the 2000s, however, the genre wasn't officially identified until the late 2010s on Instagram.

The history of hood irony is something many are familiar with, but also, many are not. So, let's explain this viral aesthetic that's prominent in videos and memes today.

What Is 'Hood Irony?'

To understand hood irony, one must understand ironic memes, which became a prominent meme genre in the mid-2010s. Back when memes first started in the 2000s, they had pretty normal jokes with obvious punchlines, giving earnest and wholesome intent.

Then, in the late 2000s and early 2010s, dank memes became the new meme genre. In nature, they were a tad more avant-garde, as in, they were deep fried and surreal, pushing the boundaries of what a meme was. Through their strange visuals, dank memes were satirizing the visuals and punchlines of the memes that came before them.

From dank memes came ironic memes with anti-punchlines and nonsensical set-ups, further flipping the expectation of what a meme was supposed to be and why one was funny. Many people call this shift in humor "Zoomer humor."

Hood irony memes simply follow this ironic practice of satirizing an internet aesthetic that's become oversaturated. With hood irony, the satire centers on internet subcultures and spaces based on Black American culture and AAVE. Think WorldStarHipHop or Black Twitter. As both these spaces developed into mainstream meme centers, their jokes and aesthetics became oversaturated in need of ironic exploitation.

In turn, hood irony memes are usually hyperbolically low-quality and moldy, using slang
words prevalent in rap music, ranging from "rizz" to "zaza."

Where Did 'Hood Irony' Come From?

The term "hood irony" was coined in 2018 when various Instagram pages started throwing the phrase around. The accounts would have strange usernames, referencing then-recent trends like MLG gaming montage parodies and Ugandan Knuckles, among others.

Although the hood irony movement predominantly started on these Instagram pages (many of which have since been banned), the genre also gained notoriety on iFunny and Reddit.

It could also be argued that hood irony memes started way before 2018. Meme trends like thug life and This is a certified hood classic started way early in the 2000s and 2010s. On Vine and elsewhere, parodies of King Bach were also increasingly prevalent.

Still though, "hood irony" as a meme genre wasn't fully solidified until its 2018 Instagram era, eventually becoming a cross-platform phenomenon in the 2020s.

How Did 'Hood Irony' Start On TikTok?

TikTok is currently where hood irony memes are most known, and many TikTokers believe that it started there. In all honesty, though, hood irony didn't come to TikTok until early 2022, mostly due to a resurgence in hood irony Instagram content starting in 2020 and 2021.

TikTok hood irony, however, has added a lot of great aspects to the genre, as well as making it mainstream for everyone to enjoy.

What Is Up With The 'Greenscreen Silhouettes' In 'Hood Irony' Videos?

In many Hood Irony videos today, there are a bunch of silhouettes walking around. It doesn't fully make sense, but something about the shadow people floating around the videos is inherently interesting and hilarious.

What's been dubbed silhouette irony started on Instagram in 2020 when a user named @chxallah started the concept in a lowly video. Going into 2022, others on the app started to add random silhouettes to their videos, sparking a later TikTok trend that everyone was curious about.

What Does 'Hood Lobotomy' Mean?

Hood lobotomy is a tough one. Basically, the phrase was coined on TikTok in December 2022 when TikTokers first started seeing greenscreen silhouette videos on their "For You" pages. A couple people in the comment sections started to write, "Me everytime after the lobotomy," in reference to the other chaotically edited video trend.

The association between hood irony and "Me everytime after the lobotomy" led to the concept of hood lobotomy, starting the hashtag #hoodlobotomy that has already earned millions of plays on the platform. In turn, the hood lobotomy videos inspired other "irony" subsets like casino irony and pirate irony that deployed their own avant-garde, similar to corecore and NicheTok too.

For the full history of hood irony, be sure to check out our entry on the meme here for even more information.