Grown Man BTW

About

Grown Man BTW or Grown Ass Man BTW is a catchphrase used to criticize or make fun of an adult man for doing something perceived as childish or acting in an immature way. The slang expression has been used regularly online since the mid-to-late 2010s and became increasingly popularized throughout the early 2020s.

Origin

It is unclear when the phrase "grown man BTW" was first used online, however, one of the earliest known examples was posted by X / Twitter^[1] user @TheMightyQD on January 11th, 2016, in which they shared a Snapchat of someone photographing their girlfriend cooking captioned, "Bae in the kitchen. Where I like her," the poster writing, "Snapchat from a grown man BTW," garnering one like in nine years. While this is the earliest known relevant use of the phrase, it is unlikely the first.

Spread

The phrase continued to spread on social media over the following years, becoming notably popularized in memes. On July 16th, 2021, Redditor u/Tainted_Scholar posted a screenshot of a Tumblr post to the subreddit /r/tumblr^[2] showing a man wearing an oversized hat, titling the post, "That's a grown man in the picture, btw," garnering over 22,000 upvotes in four years.

On July 28th, 2023, X^[3] user @Dragon_Saint_ posted a screenshot of X user @Geo_AW going on a tirade, writing, "Grown ass man btw," to call him immature, garnering over 1,200 likes in two years.

On September 20th, TikToker^[4] @dommyowo posted a video of a man counting down the release of the "Kevin the Cube" Fortnite skin and getting extremely excited to buy it, captioning the video, "grown man btw," garnering over 980,000 views in two years.

On November 16th, 2024, TikToker^[5] @clusire posted a video of themselves getting scared and screaming at a scare in a survival horror video game, captioning the video, "grown man btw," garnering over 7 million views in two months.

On January 12th, 2025, X^[6] user @Saul_Goodwoman6 posted an image of Ash and Giovanni playing the Pokemon Trading Card Game, with Giovanni boasting about a card, the poster writing, "Grown ass man btw," garnering over 36,000 likes in two days.

Various Examples

Related Memes

"Meow" "Meow" "Grown Ass Man"

'Meow' 'Meow' 'Grown Ass Man' refers to a viral iMessage screenshot that was repurposed into a series of exploitable memes in January 2024. The screenshot shows a conversation in which two people "meow" at each other until one person derides the other for responding in like, calling him a "grown ass man." The conversation was seen as emblematic of the relationship between various popular anime and cartoon characters, with fans making memes showing their favorite characters mimicking the conversation.

Search Interest

External References