Before and After Looking Up What Killed Barney?

About

Before and After Looking Up What Killed Barney? is a Don't Google TikTok trend where users film their reactions before and after Googling "what killed Barney," referring to Barney the Dinosaur. The trend is meant to send people to an article by The Independent that begins with the line, "In November 1997, Barney the Dinosaur was stabbed to death by the New York City Police Department." The trend became popularized on TikTok in late October 2022. It is similar to trends like "How did Dora die?" and rainbow kiss.

Origin

On October 13th, 2022, The Independent^[1] published an article titled, "I Love You, You Hate Me: Why did so many people want to murder Barney the Dinosaur?" The opening line is, "In November 1997, Barney the Dinosaur was stabbed to death by the New York City Police Department" and is used in reference to a Barney Thanksgiving Day parade balloon that was destroyed in 1997 (shown below).

On October 25th, TikToker^[2] @talialopes_ posted a video captioned, "record yourself before and after searching 'what killed Barney,'" where she shows her reactions to doing this, garnering over 1.4 million views in three days (shown below).

Spread

The trend spread across TikTok over the following days as users filmed their reactions to Googling the term. On October 25th, 2022, TikToker^[3] @morgi_1234_norma shared a screenshot of the results of their Google search, gathering over 70,000 views in three days (shown below). On October 27th, The Tab^[4] and HITC^[5] published articles about the trend. On October 28th, Dexerto^[6] also published an article on the trend.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References