Caught Me Sleeping / Bae Caught Me Slippin

About

Caught Me Sleeping, often intentionally misspelled as “Bae Caught Me Slippin”, is a phrase associated with selfies that are falsely presented as if they were taken by a significant other while the subject was asleep. After several failed spread online, these misleading images went on to inspire a parody photo fad.

Origin

On October 9th, 2012, Twitter user @NostrandAv shared a photo of a woman taking a picture herself pretending to be asleep, with the caption "Females Be Like 'Bae Caught Me Slippin'"^[2], a snowclone variation of the expression Bitches Be Like. As of March 26th, 2013, the tweet received 22 retweets and 14 favorites.

Spread

Also on October 9th, the picture was reuploaded to humor website NoWayGirl^[1], where it earned more than 130 Facebook likes. Over the course of the next several days, a handful of Twitter users including @ErrrthangRegula^[15], @DamnShesPretty_^[16] and @Major_marcus^[17] shared their own self-staged sleeping photos using the same caption. Although these photos did not clearly note that they were self-taken, each person received responses doubting their authenticity (shown below). As of July 2013, "bae caught me slippin" has been used on Twitter more than 7,800 times.^[18]

On November 26th, Instagram user Jermz_vi^[11] posted a photo of himself (shown below) pretending to sleep with the caption "my baby caught me sleeping." However, a mirror behind him reveals that he is taking the photo. Jermz_vi admitted in the comments that he took the photo intentionally as a joke. The picture was reshared on a number sites, including NoWayGirl^[10] and Tumblr^[9] where it received more than 3,100 notes. On Twitter, a link to Jermz_vi's original Instagram photo was shared more than 5,200 times.^[19] as of July 2013. The picture was also posted on Tumblr by user welcometothisblogbitch^[6] on November 29th, 2012, which has received more than 10,800 notes as of the same date.

On November 27th, @WillmaSupaStar^[20] tweeted^[21] a link to an Instagram photo of herself wearing large earrings and makeup taking a similar photo to Jermz_vi, also with a large mirror behind her. Though she eventually deleted the tweet and the photo, she told blogger DerrickNtheCity she did take the photo as a joke. The same day, Redditor iSpellBadly submitted the photo to the Funny subreddit^[7], where it has received more than 16,000 upvotes and 9,800 points overall as of March 2013. In the days following this Reddit post, her photo was featured in various blogs including CollegeHumor^[8], Crave Online^[3], HappyPlace^[4] and The Huffington Post.^[5]

In late February 2013, Buzzfeed^[23] compiled a list of 10 images shared on Facebook and Twitter depicting people taking self-shots while pretending to be asleep. On March 15th, 2013, Tumblr user Newkidsonmycock11^[12] who shared a photo of an Asian male taking a fake sleeping picture while the mirror shows he's holding the phone between his feet (shown below, left). On March 24th, Tumblr user Csleb uploaded a photo of himself^[13] lying on the floor fake sleeping while the mirror shows a Pikachu doll propped up as if it is taking the picture (shown below, right). As of March 25th, both posts have received more than 10,500 and 11,500 notes, respectively. A screen capture of Newkidsonmycock11's photo was posted by Tumblr user awesomephilia^[14] on March 24th, which gained more than 40,000 notes in less than 36 hours.

On March 28th, the Facebook fan page "Babe caught me sleeping"^[26] was created, gaining 61 likes as of July 2013. In April, these faux sleeping photos were featured on MemeCenter^[27], We Know Memes^[28], and parenting message board Sybermoms.^[29] They have also appeared on the Bodybuilding.com forums^[30], Troll360^[31], HumorTube^[32], The Meta Picture^[33], I Waste So Much Time^[34] and FunnyJunk.^[35]

Notable Examples

Additional photos can be found on Twitter and Tumblr as both "babe caught me sleepin"^[24][36] and "bae caught me slippin."^[25][37] On Instagram, these photos can be found with the hashtag #caughtmesleeping.^[38]

Search Interest

External References