Cutting Wrapping Paper and the Scissors Start to Glide

Submission 3,081

About

Cutting Wrapping Paper and the Scissors Start to Glide refers to a series of jokes and memes about the commonly felt satisfaction of slicing through gift wrapping with scissors. Many find the experience to be an example of the Oddly Satisfying phenomena.

Origin

The Hallmark credited itself with inventing modern wrapping paper in 1917.^[1] They wrote:

At Christmastime 1917, Hallmark sold out of the traditional tissue paper at its Halls store in the heart of Kansas City, Mo. Rollie B. Hall, founder J.C. Hall’s older brother, searched the company’s manufacturing plant and found recently imported French envelope liners that were brightly colored and highly stylized. The company sold the liners as gift wrap for 10 cents a piece and quickly sold out. The following year, Halls stocked up heavily and sold out once again.

On January 16th, 2010, Twitter ^[2] user @Jesscarxox published the earliest known mention of the experience (shown below). They wrote, "I love it when i'm cutting wrapping paper and the scissors start to glide."

Spread

In the months following the initial tweet, the meme grew in usage. Later that year, on December 22nd, 2010, Tumblr ^[3] user emmavassxo responded to an overwhelmed reaction image, with the caption, "THE GLORIOUS MOMENT WHEN YOU'RE CUTTING WRAPPING PAPER AND THE SCISSORS START TO GLIDE." The post received more than 13,000 notes in less than 10 years (shown below).

Three years later, on December 24th, 2013, Twitter^[4] user @TheNardvark tweeted, "When you’re cutting wrapping paper and your scissors start to glide is what I imagine heroin feels like." The tweet received more than38,000 likes and 20,000 retweets in less than seven years (shown below).

Over the next few years, the meme continued to be a popular one, with people posting reaction images to represent the feeling of their scissors gliding (examples below, left and center). On October 21st, 2018, Twitter^[5] user @noahhroark shared a variation that features the video game character Toad doing a wheelie. The tweet received more than 153,000 likes and 49,500 retweets in less than three years (shown below, right).