About

A Secret Third Thing, sometimes written as "A Secret, More Complex Third Thing," is a catchphrase and phrasal template popularized on Twitter in the summer of 2022 with the template, "I am neither X nor Y but a secret third thing."

Origin

The template appears to have originated from a doctored image macro of a dog with the phrase "I'm neither joking nor serious but another secret third thing." On May 25th, 2022, Twitter user @snafuqd^[1] tweeted the earliest known post with the image, gaining over 3,200 retweets and 13,000 likes (shown below).

Spread

Over the following several months, the template began going viral on Twitter as people replaced "joking" and "serious" with other verbs. For example, on August 2nd, 2022, user @sillymonkey^[2] tweeted, "im not horny or scared anymore but a secret third thing," gaining over 2,700 retweets and 19,000 likes in one month (shown below, left). On August 16th, Twitter user @rundizzy^[3] tweeted, "not hungry or full but a secret third thing," gaining over 40 retweets and 300 likes in two weeks (shown below, right).

Starting August 28th, Twitter user @daughter_ion began tweeting jokes, that added "secret, more complex third thing" as the punchline. For example, that day, she tweeted,^[4] "we saw you from across the bar and we really dig ur vibe. my boyfriend and i are looking for a secret, more complex third thing," gaining over 300 likes in three days (shown below, left). Others began adopting this iteration of the meme. For example, on August 31st, user @nicolerichle^[5] tweeted "i’m not a girl, not yet a woman but a secret more complex third thing," gaining over 30 retweets and 300 likes in one day (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References