Gary Barlow's Massive Son

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Part of a series on British People / Bri'ish. [View Related Entries]

About

Gary Barlow's Massive Son, also known as Gary Barlow's Son, refers to the son of British popstar Gary Barlow named Daniel Barlow who went viral in November 2024, when a photo of him and his dad spread on Twitter / X. Users joked about how much taller he was than his dad. In reality, his son's only 6'2". Regardless, memes about the height of Gary Barlow's son spread en masse, predominantly focused on his comically large size.

Origin

On June 18th, 2023, Gary Barlow posted a blurry picture to his Instagram story that showed himself with his wife Dawn and two kids, including his son Daniel. The photo was posted in honor of Father's Day. Barlow captioned the image, "Father's Day is the one day I think I'm allowed to post pics of the fam hey????" (shown below).^[1]

Spread

On August 25th, 2023, Redditor^[2] Spaff-Badger reposted the image to /r/AbsoluteUnits, gaining 23 upvotes in a year.

The image didn't receive viral attention until late 2024, following a post shared by X^[3] user @cantseyy on November 4th, who captioned the image, "Gary Barlow's son is scared, he doesn't know why he's so big," receiving over 14,000 likes in three days (shown below).

Later on November 4th, X^[4] user @fattmellows tweeted a mock BBC News segment in which the anchor says, "We interrupt our 24-hour election coverage to inform you that Gary Barlow has a massive son," gaining over 26,000 likes in three days (shown below).

In the following days, memes about Gary Barlow's son evolved, becoming increasingly imaginative. For instance, on November 5th, 2024, X^[5] user @brmdlucas tweeted the Willem Dafoe Looking Up GIF, captioning it, "Gary Barlow asking his son how his day at school was." The tweet received over 23,000 likes in two days (shown below).

On November 7th, X^[6] user @youwouldknow used the Abe Simpson Talking To Kids format to joke about how the U.K.'s discovery of Gary Barlow's Massive Son coincided with the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election, gaining over 41,000 likes in less than a day (shown below).

Also on November 7th, 2024, Redditor^[7] plutobug2468 shared a slideshow of memes to /r/CasualUK, writing, "Love the fact that we’re all shocked at Gary Barlow’s massive son," gaining over 2,800 upvotes in less than a day (shown below).

Memes also spread on TikTok during the same timeframe. For instance, on November 6th, 2024, TikToker^[8] @unhinged.girly used the Gary Barlow's This Is My Idea of a Very Nice Day Out meme template to joke about, "Gary Barlow climbing the beanstalk to visit his son," amassing over 368,500 plays and 60,600 likes in a day (shown below).

On November 7th, 2024, The Daily Mail^[9] published an article about the memes, noting that Daniel Barlow was 6'2". His father was reportedly 5'7".