Crying Boo

Submission 31,176

Part of a series on Monsters Inc.. [View Related Entries]

About

Crying Boo or Scared Boo refers to a series of memes based on a reaction image of Monsters Inc. character Boo crying. First gaining spread among Spanish-speaking users on Facebook in 2017, the format regained popularity online in March 2021 with subformats in which Crying Boo drives a car and plays video games.

Origin

On November 2nd, 2001, Pixar animated film Monstrers Inc. was released featuring the original character Boo seen in the meme.^[1] In one scene of the film, the character Mike Wazowski takes his plush toy away from Boo, with Boo beginning to cry loudly (scene shown below).

[This video has been removed]

Starting approximately in early March 2017, a still image of Boo crying and shying away gained popularity as source material for memes among Spanish-speaking users on Facebook,^[2] with the meme presumably originating in now-deleted Facebook group Legion Holk (compilation video shown below).^[3]

Spread

Prior to February 2021, the format did not attract attention from English-speaking users despite achieving significant spread in Spanish meme communities (example posts shown below, left and center).^[4] On March 27th, 2018, a dedicated Facebook^[5] group called Memes de Boo Llorando was created. On December 23rd, 2020, Redditor^[6] Sad-Board posted one of the earlier viral English memes based on the image, gaining over 24,800 upvotes in three months (shown below, right).

Crying Boo Driving

On January 20th, 2021, Facebook^[7] page Paraguayita Ñañala posted a viral meme based on a photoshop in which Crying Boo is edited behind a driving wheel (shown below, left, author of the edit unknown). The post accumulated over 6,700 reactions and 13,00 shares in two months. The meme received viral spread in the following month, with multiple users and meme pages reposting and remaking it.^[8]^[9] On February 17th, 2021, Twitter^[10] user @pyrorivarola reposted the meme with the tweet gaining over 27,900 retweets and 197,100 likes in two weeks (shown below, right).

On February 23rd, Twitter^[11] user @adozenkovic reused the edited image in their tweet, captioning it "when your dad is teaching you how to drive." The post received over 880 retweets and 3,200 likes in one week (shown below, left). In the following days, the image received additional viral spread on Twitter as a reaction image. For example, on February 24th, user @hoemoticon made^[12] a tweet that received over 1,100 retweets and 5,300 likes in one week (shown below, center). On February 26th, Twitter^[13] user @Glittergl4mmm posted a joke based on a similar edited image that combined the meme with another popular image of Mike Wazowski screaming and received over 70,000 retweets and 417,000 likes, as well as being reused in other memes in the following days (shown below, right).

Crying Boo Gaming

On March 1st, 2021, Twitter^[14] user @FioralX posted a two-panel meme in which Boo played the 2017 video game Nier: Automata, with the second panel being an edit in which Crying Boo was given a PS4 controller and a headset. The post received over 2,400 retweets and 11,700 likes in one day (shown below).

Following the post, multiple users on Twitter posted memes in which this edit was used to convey their reactions to scary or touching scenes in video games.