At the Store / Peach Time

Submission 23,404

Part of a series on Mysillycomics. [View Related Entries]

About

At the Store / Peach Time, also known as Celebrities Shop Too, is an exploitable meme format based on a 2018 webcomic by Mysillycomics in which the main character, shopping for canned peaches, is starstruck by Miku Hatsune who reaches for the same can. The meme format gained initial virality on Tumblr in 2019 and has seen a continuous presence online since.

Origin

On October 2nd, 2018, artist Mysillycomics posted a four-panel comic titled "Celebrities Shop Too." In the comic, the main character is shopping for canned peaches and reaches for a can at the store, with another person reaching for it at the same time. The third panel reveals that the person is in fact Hatsune Miku. Starstruck, the character utters Miku Hatsune's name.

The comic garnered over 10,700 posts and 32,800 likes on X^[1] and over 36,900 likes and reblogs on Tumblr^[2] in four years.

It's likely that the phrase "peach time" used in the comic is a reference to an older Rage Comics meme format of the same name popular on Tumblr.

On October 18th, 2018, Redditor bonzy-buddy posted the earliest found edit of the comic, referencing the Cthulhu Mythos. The post (shown below) received over 90 upvotes in /r/Cthulhu^[3] in five years.

Spread

The format achieved initial popularity in January 2019 on X and Tumblr, with users replacing Miku Hatsune with people and characters. On January 14th, 2019, X^[4] user @grimeth_ posted a version about musician Imogen Heap that received over 30 retweets and 100 likes prior to removal (shown below, left).

On January 16th, X^[5] user @milkiato posted a Sasuke Choke meme that gained over 1,900 retweets and 5,200 likes in five years (shown below, center). On August 28th, 2019, Tumblr^[6] user hawkishpebble posted a version featuring Demoman from Team Fortress 2. The post (shown below, right) gained over 3,500 likes and reblogs in four years.

The format maintained popularity online throughout the late 2010s and early 2020s, with notable versions appearing across all major platforms. For example, on February 2nd, 2020, Tumblr^[7] user superdumptruck64 reblogged a Mob Psycho 100 edit by user pajaritos that accumulated over 3,400 reblogs and 6,800 likes in three years.

On November 9th, 2020, X^[8] user @RadDanArt posted a No More Heroes version that received over 890 retweets and 1,900 likes in three years (shown below, center). On January 26th, 2021, iFunny^[9] user flopnik posted a Big Floppa edit that garnered over 630 smiles in the same period (shown below, right).