Be Careful Who You Call Ugly in Middle School

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About

"Be Careful Who You Call Ugly In Middle School," sometimes with “high school” in lieu of “middle school,” is a catchphrase used to mock an anti-cyberbullying movement which highlights the drastic change in a person's physical appearance by comparing two photographs taken at different ages, in the style of celebrities' before-and-after images as featured in the He Will Never Have a Girlfriend rage comic series.

Origin

The origin of this meme is unknown, but it first surfaced around October 2015 on Facebook around the same time as the hashtag-based challenge #BeCarefulWhoYouCallUglyChallenge began circulating. The challenge was meant to inspire people to stop cyberbullying by encouraging people to post pictures of themselves during their “awkward phase” and then again as adults, to show their current beauty. On October 13th, Instagram account @savagerealm posted a two-panel parody image featuring a “before-and-after” photograph of a teenage girl and her older self, followed by the Confused Nick Young. reaction image. The Instagram post was subsequently reposted on 9gag, IGN Forum and Imgur.

Spread

On March 13th, 2016, Twitter user turbothot used the phrase along with an image of Squidward and Handsome Squidward from Spongebob Squarepants. The post received over 500 likes and 339 retweets.

On March 15th, user anthony_wrong posted another version of the meme with a normal Caliou, and then with a photoshopped beard. The tweet received over 75 likes and over 50 retweets.

On March 17th, Twitter user garyfromteenmom posted another instance in which he posted a picture of an ice cube and the rapper Ice Cube. This post received over 800 liked and over 400 retweets.

On April 17th, 2017,Tumblr user @calledmothers^[7] replied to the thread “be careful who you call ugly in middle school” writing “not because they might get hot or something but because its mean.” The response received over 188k notes in just over a year and the image of the response has been shared throughout social media, like twitter.

On April 22nd, 2017, twitter user @BoolinBrynce^[8] shared a photo of toad alongside a photoshopped version of Toad with abnormally long legs. The photo was captioned “Be careful who you call ugly in high school” and has since reached 1.6k retweets and 3k likes as of August 2017.

On June 19th, 2017, twitter account @Scream_Captain^[9] shared a photo of Nintendo character Lucas and anime character Mirio Togata from Boku no Hero. The tweet received 6.6 retweets and 11k likes as of August 2017.

On August 10th, 2017, Paris Jackson^[10] shared an old photo of herself and a sloth on twitter, captioning it “be careful who you call ugly in high school that glo up tho ” The tweet received 418 retweets and 3k likes in less than a month.

As of August 31st, 2017, the meme continues to be popular on both Facebook^[6] and Twitter,^[5] with thousands of instances on each.