Fighting Demons

About

Fighting Demons refers to a catchphrase and phrasal template trend related to one person or group of people saying, "I'm fighting demons," when in reality, the struggle being referenced is far less intense than alluded to. Some of the most common over-exaggerated struggles are being bored, bisexuality or fighting with themselves, among others. The meme took off en masse on Twitter in 2019 but has existed sporadically in prior years.

Origin

The concept of fighting demons in an earnest, spiritual sense has been present on both Twitter^[1] and Instagram^[2] since 2009. Many inspirational photo quotes have been shared since the early internet on blogs that are related to fighting demons, and eventually, overcoming them.

From this oversaturation of earnest content, ironic usage of the "fighting demons" concept started to appear as early as the mid-2010s, though earlier examples exist more infrequently. On April 25th, 2016, notable YouTuber Markiplier posted a tweet^[3] that read, "How come, 'I'll get to it eventually' always turns into, 'holy shit it's 3am and I'm fighting demons.'" Over the course of six years, the tweet received roughly 16,200 likes and is the first known humorous piece of content to reference "fighting demons" prominently (shown below).

Spread

Following the aforementioned Markiplier tweet, earnest usage of the "fighting demons" phrase increased on Twitter^[4] from mostly male users who started to become associated with fuckboy clichés, alluded to by their insistence on their own demons being fought. Humorous usage of "fighting demons" appeared en masse as a result of this oversaturation starting in 2019. The first to comment on this cliché in their memetic content was Twitter^[5] user TakaraLee_, who tweeted on February 23rd, 2019, "Niggas swear they fighting demons, 🙄whole time it’s KARMA," earning over 630 likes in three years (shown below).

On April 28th, 2019, Twitter^[6] user d_gabbs7 joked about the imagined demons in the heads of men being lice instead, which took the idea of TakaraLee_'s tweet but earned more engagement, roughly 17,200 likes in three years (shown below, left). The aforementioned tweet inspired multiple iterations of the same concept going into the end of 2019. For instance, on September 19th, 2019, Twitter^[7] user chaselyons tweeted, "You’re not fighting demons bro your fitted sheet is just loose," earning roughly 18,300 likes in three years (shown below, right).

On December 12th, 2021, Twitter^[8] user bocxtop posted a tweet reading, "sundays are cool, entire day just for fighting demons and losing," earning roughly 255,800 likes in six months (shown below, left). Bocxtop's tweet subsequently spiked interest in the meme going into early 2022. For instance, on January 23rd, 2022, a Whisper post reading, "girls be like 'i'm fighting demons' and the demons be having to eat breakfast," was posted by Instagram^[9] account fluoxetine_fertile_fairy, however, they are not the likely creator. The Whisper post was exploited en masse on platforms like Twitter and Tumblr in 2022. For example, on April 19th, 2022, Tumblr^[10] blog wumblr made it moldy and replaced the text to reference the mythical creature Stolas. Over the course of two months, the post received roughly 2,500 notes (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References