Cutie Patootie

Submission 23,269

Part of a series on Internet Slang. [View Related Entries]

About

Cutie Patootie is an endearing nickname that became a memetic slang term and spam comment on TikTok in 2023 within videos related to becoming a femboy or a cat girl. Videos that referenced "cutie patootie" used images and videos of anime girls and VTubers like RinRinnie, trending en masse in August 2023. Prior to August 2023, "cutie patootie" was used in memes as an unserious yet flattering compliment.

Origin

Broken down word by word, "cutie" is a variant of the word "cute" and "patootie" has been likened to the word "potato," first surfacing in 1919 within the phrase "sweet patootie," as in, "sweet potato."^[1] "Patootie" ultimately became synonymous with "sweetheart, pretty girl" in colloquial American English.^[1]

Usage of "cutie patootie" in memes first surfaced on X in the late 2010s. Viral X posts with the phrase were posted by social media influencers, such as in an X^[2] posted by Brandon Rowland on July 17th, 2016, which gained roughly 10,600 likes in seven years (shown below, left).

More humorous usage of the phrase can be likened to X user @CaucasianJames who uploaded a series of viral posts^[3]^[4]^[5] in 2018 that used the phrase, the first of which, uploaded on August 1st, 2018,^[3] gained roughly 5,700 likes in five years (shown below, right).

Spread

X^[4]^[5] user @CaucasianJames continued to popularize the usage of "cutie patootie" going into 2019. Despite his virality, viral usage of the phrase didn't trend en masse until 2022 and 2023 on TikTok. For instance, on December 27th, 2022, TikToker^[6] @alluringskull posted a video that called the viewer a cutie patootie, gaining roughly 717,000 plays and 134,100 likes in eight months (shown below, left).

On February 3rd, 2023, TikToker^[7] @little.warren posted a video in which she ironically expressed discomfort over a comment reading, "You're a cutie patootie," gaining roughly 1.7 million plays and 176,900 likes in six months (shown below, right).

On July 22nd, 2023, TikToker^[8] @bubble_nugget420 posted a video that used an anime girl and made a joke about being a cutie patootie after using a "girl skin in a game," gaining roughly 1.7 million plays and 305,800 likes in one month (shown below, left).

Thereafter, others on the app started to make similar jokes while using anime girl visuals. For instance, on July 29th, TikToker^[9] @cutiepatootiewithrizz posted a video that followed the same format, gaining roughly 885,500 plays and 150,700 likes in one month (shown below, right).

TikToker^[10]^[11] @cutiepatootiewithrizz would continue posting "cutie patootie" videos going into August 2023, helping to pioneer the trend. Many of @cutiepatootiewithrizz's videos used clips from VTuber RinRinnie, present on X^[12] and YouTube.^[13]

The usage of RinRinne visuals spread to other creators, such as a video posted by TikToker^[14] @rinitoshii12 on August 7th, 2023, that compared being called "racial slurs" to instead being called a cutie patootie, receiving roughly 462,100 plays and 61,000 likes in 16 days (shown below).