Don't Say It

Submission 37,800

About

Don't Say It is a Twitter meme in which people post mock conversations between themselves and their brain, in which the brain warns them against destructive, embarrassing or unnecessary activities.

Origin

On October 21st, 2017, Twitter^[1] user @Pandamoanimum tweeted, "*Gets in taxi* Brain: Don't say it. Don't say it. Don't say it. Mouth: Been busy tonight, mate? Brain: WHAT DID I JUST FUCKING TELL YOU?!" The tweet received more than 130 retweet sand 700 likes in one year (shown below, left).

The following year, on July 13th, 2018, @Pandamoanimum posted a similar tweet,^[2] adding more instances of the phrase "Don't say it." The tweet received more than 7,000 retweets and 36,000 likes in four months (shown below, right).

Precursor

Prior to the emergence of the "Don't Say It" meme, many online joked about asking their taxi drivers "busy tonight mate?" One of the earliest available is a retweet^[3] from the deleted account @ThatLad0114 on December 29th, 2010 (shown below, left). On September 26th, 2017, Twitter^[4] user @paddypower tweeted, "'Been busy tonight mate?' 'Aye' 'What time you on till?'" In a little over a year, the tweet received more than 950 retweets and 4,200 likes (shown below, right).

Spread

On November 7th, 2018, Twitter^[5] shared the second @Pandamoanimum tweeted and received more than 5,500 retweets and 32,000 likes in six days (shown below).

Over the next week, more people on Twitter posted variations of the format, using a variety of situations that might be against a person's best interest (examples below).

On November 11th, Twitter^[6] published a Moments page about the meme. Several media outlets covered the surge in usage, too, including The Daily Dot ^[7] Mashable, ^[8] Thrillist^[9] and more.