About

Cristiano Ronaldo Drinking, also known as Cristiano Ronaldo Sipping, is an exploitable image macro that uses a 2017 viral video of professional soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo drinking chocolate wine (chocowine) from a large wine glass in a house and giving the camera a smile and a wink after. The meme, which began trending in late 2021, has been used in various ways and formats, such as incorporating music, text captions and onscreen effects to make it versatile.

In late December 2025 and early January 2026, the Cristiano Ronaldo Drinking meme saw a significant resurgence online, particularly on TikTok under the name Ronaldo Drinking Chocolate Milk, as users edited the original clip further and referenced it in other memes. Many of the posts claimed it was the "first meme of 2026."

Origin

On May 15th, 2017, Cristiano Ronaldo uploaded an Instagram Story of himself drinking chocolate wine to his profile. Before it was lost, the video was tweeted out by the Twitter page SBNation^[1] that same day, earning 55 likes and 150,000 views in five years (shown below).

On November 5th, 2021, the YouTube channel peter26de^[2] uploaded the first instance of the video being used as a meme, titled "Ronaldo drinking meme," which gained 281,000 views in two months. The video also uses the song "Feel Good" by Syn Cole in the background (shown below).

Spread

The video of Cristiano Ronaldo drinking chocolate wine continued to spread in the following months of late 2021 and early 2022 to additional platforms.

For example, on December 20th, 2021, it was then used in a meme about the movie Spider-Man No Way Home, uploaded to iFunny by the user Nc_Populist,^[3] earning 230 likes in 22 days (shown below).

The meme template was then picked up and used on other platforms like Telegram with more effort put into adding filters and objects using Photoshop.

An example that references SpongeBob SquarePants was posted on January 3rd, 2022, by Telegram user Eternal Classic,^[4] earning 12,800 views in one week (shown below).

2026 Resurgence

At the end of December 2025 and early January 2026, the meme of Cristiano Ronaldo drinking chocolate wine saw a notable resurgence online in a new wave of exploitable edits and memetic references, primarily on TikTok. Much of the resurgence came from users posting it in TikTok comments sections as stickers, with many labeling it the "first meme of 2026."

For instance, on January 3rd, 2026, TikToker^[5] rianbhattarai posted the meme on their page, receiving over 454,000 likes and 66,000 comments in six days, with numerous users commenting with the sticker of the post.

That same day, TikToker H00pify uploaded a video discussing the Ronaldo Drinking meme and saying it was the first meme of 2026, garnering nearly 9,300 likes and 1,900 comments in six days on the hoopervalley8 TikTok^[6] account. In the comments, many users argued that Eye of Horus, among other memes, were the first true meme of the year.

On January 4th, 2026, TikTok^[7] user titann.ae11 posted another meme claiming it as the first meme of 2026, which featured a clip of pop singer Sabrina Carpenter and a fancam edit of Ronaldo following the meme. The edit received over 356,800 views and 23,600 comments in five days.

On January 5th, TikToker^[8] lama19652 shared another fancam edit of Cristiano Ronaldo alongside the cameraman version of the meme that depicted Ronaldo as an astronaut recording the end of the Earth in space. The meme accumulated over 95,400 likes and 19,300 comments in four days.

The influx of usage of the Ronaldo Drinking meme in TikTok comment sections in early January 2026 continued spawning memes and discourse as it spread on the site.

For example, on January 7th, 2026, TikTok^[9] user okcron posted an edit of themselves recreating the meme with a Nobody edit referencing "everyone commenting the Ronaldo drinking meme" and how it was "in every comment section," receiving roughly 3,200 likes and 1,800 comments in two days.

Various Examples

Template / Green Screen

Search Interest

External References