Are You Being Intentionally Dense? "Huh?"

Submission 8,171

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About

Are You Being Intentionally Dense? "Huh?" refers to a scene from the medical drama TV show House, M.D. in which the character Dr. Lisa Cuddy (portrayed by Lisa Edelstein) asks Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie), "Are you being intentionally dense?" to which Dr. House looks at her with an open mouth and wide eyes and says, "Huh?" The scene became a meme on YouTube and iFunny, predominantly in early 2023, mostly due to the sound of Dr. House's "Huh?" which sounded like the Huh Huh Huh meme. Meme creator's replaced his "Huh?" with various sound effects across multiple iterations.

Origin

On September 27th, 2005, season two, episode three of House, M.D. titled "Humpty Dumpty" aired on American television.^[1] In one scene of the episode, Dr. Cuddy asked Dr. House, "Are you being intentionally dense?" to which Dr. House looked at her and said "Huh?" The scene was first posted to YouTube by YouTuber^[2] Noa Bonneh on January 7th, 2007, within a compilation of "Houseisms" that gained roughly 57,400 views in 16 years (shown below, left). On October 30th, 2009, YouTuber^[3] stutzada uploaded the moment by itself, gaining roughly 3,300 views in 14 years (shown below, right).

Despite a 2000s origin, the scene wasn't remixed into memes until the 2020s. Currently, the first-known memetic usage of the scene was posted by YouTuber^[4] PerServant_VR on October 6th, 2022, who added the Hadouken sound effect from Street Fighter, gaining over 100 views in seven months (shown below).

Spread

Despite YouTuber^[4] PerServant_VR's October 2022 video, "Are You Being Intentionally Dense?" didn't become a notable meme trend until May 2023 on iFunny. The memes started when iFunnier^[5] @JimmyVile shared the scene on May 12th, 2023, gaining roughly 4,700 smiles in one week (shown below, left). On May 14th, iFunnier^[6] @Nimitz19 then shared the first known re-edit on the platform, adding the AUGHHHH sound effect and an Xbox Live jumpscare, gaining roughly 12,100 smiles in five days (shown below, right).

Going into May 2023, various memes using the scene surfaced on iFunny.^[7] The memes then spread to other video platforms like TikTok. For instance, on May 16th, 2023, TikToker^[8] @papapringle102 reposted a video originally made by iFunnier^[7] @OasisOfficial a day prior, gaining roughly 242,600 plays and 45,500 likes in three days.