Being Perceived

Submission 21,210

About

Being Perceived refers to jokes about being viewed by and inevitably judged by others in the world by virtue of existing, similar to The Mortifying Ideal Of Being Known. This is usually expressed with exasperation and sometimes represented by an existential image.

Origin

While the origin of the phrase "Being Perceived" being used as a meme is unclear, the phrase began started regularly appearing in jokes and memes around September of 2019. One of the earliest known uses of the phrase as a meme was posted on September 16th, 2019 by @coolado,_^[1] who posted an image of King Jingaling from Banjo-Kazooie on a casting couch gaining over 70 retweets and 250 likes (shown below).

Spread

Over the following several weeks, multiple tweets found users expressing their exhaustion with being perceived. Popular examples include a September 25th, 2019 tweet by @dn3hrnjgs,^[2] which gained over 570 retweets and 1,500 likes (shown below, left), and a September 24th tweet by @yungbiryanii^[3] which gained over 370 retweets and 1,600 likes (shown below, right).

Others used the term "being perceived" to post selfies, using the term positively as though they were embracing being perceived. User @fuzzyguysocks^[4] posted selfies, gaining 5 retweets and 35 likes (shown below, left). On October 15th, 2020, user @pali1216^[5] posted a picture with their eyes closed, joking, "You are not being perceived. This post is a perception-free zone," (shown below, right). The meme has been covered by StayHipp.^[6]