Genius Lyric Messages

About

Genius Lyric Messages are memes in which song lyrics from the Genius app are superimposed over images. The memes often take lyrics out of context for humorous effect.

Origin

On September 12th, 2016, Genius announced lyric messages for users of its iOS app.^[1] Exclusive to iMessage, the feature allows users to search for song lyrics, highlight a section, and place it over a selected image. Created images also display the name of the song and artist.

Spread

The spread of lyric messages is unclear, but their usage may have skyrocketed in 2019 and 2020 following the rise of Genius "Verified" parodies. They are only available on iOS devices.

Sometime before March 7th, 2019, a no context Instagram account called worstlyrics was created to share comical Genius lyric messages.^[2] As of October 2020, it has over 49,000 followers.^[3] A similar Twitter account with the handle @GeniusLyricsWC was created on May 5th, 2020. In five months, it accumulated over 38,000 followers.^[4] Some popular examples from the accounts include an October 5th, 2020 @GeniusLyricsWC^[5] tweet showing Gunna's "Who You Foolin," gaining over 3,900 retweets and 12,000 likes (shown below, left) and a July 19th, 2020 tweet from the same account^[6] using Nascar Aloe's "All I Want In Life," gaining over 470 retweets and 2,600 likes (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References