Gunna Writing Fire

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Part of a series on GIF Captions. [View Related Entries]

About

Gunna Writing Fire is a viral video of rapper Gunna writing on paper as fire breaks out from under his pen from the 2019 music video for Young Thug's song "Hot." Starting in November 2019, the clip has been used as a reaction and a video or GIF caption format to convey that a piece of writing is exceptionally good ("fire"), regaining popularity with He Didn't Say That memes in July 2022.

Origin

On November 1st, 2019, the music video for Young Thug's single "Hot" featuring rappers Gunna and Travis Scott premiered.^[1] In one scene, Gunna is shown writing on paper as fire bursts out from under his pen, consuming the entire house. The music video accumulated over 183 million views on YouTube in three years (shown below).

Immediately following the premiere of the video, the clip has been used on Twitter in video caption memes. On November 3rd, 2019, Twitter^[2] user @AyoDerik posted the earliest found video caption meme based on the clip that gained over 1,700 views, 33 retweets and over 90 likes in three years (shown below).

Spread

Through late 2019 and 2020, more video caption memes based on the GIF were posted by users on Twitter. For example, on April 2nd, 2020, Twitter^[3] user @DatBoiReezy__ made a post that gained over 1,900 views, 39 retweets and 220 likes in two years (shown below). On August 6th, 2020, user @N1NOBROWN posted a tweet^[4] that used the clip as a reaction. The post gained over 26,500 views, 14 retweets and over 290 likes in two years.

The popularity of the format declined in 2021 before experiencing a resurgence in 2022. On April 10th, Redditor Random_Average_Human posted a GIF Caption meme that received over 10,400 upvotes in /r/memes^[5] in four months. On April 14th, Instagram^[6] user smartibapp reposted the meme, gaining over 18,000 views and 4,000 likes.

Starting in mid-April 2022, the clip, now set to a Slowed + Reverb version of Playboi Carti's "Rockstar Made," gained popularity as a video caption format on TikTok. For example, on April 16th, 2022, TikTok^[7] user @zach5454 posted a meme that gained over 1.5 million views and 295,000 likes in four months (shown below, left; more examples^[8]^[9] shown below, center and right).

On July 13th, 2022, Redditor daxi17 posted a He Didn't Say That meme based on the format that received over 11,900 upvotes in the /r/ShitPostCrusaders^[10] subreddit (shown below, left).

The post inspired more similar memes combining the formats in the following weeks. For example, on July 14th, Redditor Pwnz_r posted a Breaking Bad He Didn't Say That meme that received over 16,900 upvotes in /r/shitposting^[11] and over 5,000 upvotes in /r/whenthe^[12] in one month (shown below, center). On August 4th, Redditor WirelessImpostor posted a How to Train Your Dragon meme that accumulated over 25,300 upvotes in /r/shitposting^[13] in two weeks (shown below, right).

He Didn't Say That / Movie Titles in Movie Lines

Movie Titles in Movie Lines or He Didn't Say That refers to a series of memes in which a name of a movie or a video game is edited into the lines as if a character says it. Originating from a /tv/ thread, the trend gained significant popularity on Reddit, Facebook and Twitter in mid-October 2020.