Hey Italian Man / Peppino Scream

About

Hey Italian Man or Peppino Scream refers to a series of Pizza Tower memes using an exploitable video clip where Peppino, joined by two other characters, screams in fear at a subject. The meme uses a video uploaded by YouTuber LYON S.P.D in April 2023 where Peppino screams at the word "boob" changed to "boo" and became popularized on TikTok throughout April and May 2023. An audio clip of Peppino's scream also became popular as a lip dub audio on the app.

Origin

On April 25th, 2023, YouTuber^[1] LYON S.P.D posted a video made in Garry's Mod titled, "Pizza Tower: Boo(B) or Boo?" where Peppino sees the word "boob" on a screen, then changes it to "boo" and screams as several other characters from the game join in one by one, garnering over 720,000 views in two weeks (reupload shown below). The video was reuploaded to TikTok^[2] on April 28th, garnering over 74,000 views in the same rough span of time.

Spread

On May 1st, 2023, TikToker^[3] @donotreport7 posted a meme using the isolated clip of Peppino screaming, garnering over a million views in a week (shown below, left). The original sound was used over 2,200 times in that span of time, mostly in lip dubs. For example, on May 7th, TikToker^[4] @srshachou01 posted a lip dub about seeing the cat blender video using the audio, garnering over 2.4 million views in three days (shown below, right).

On May 9th, TikToker^[5] @area_cokor posted a version of the meme using the Peppino screaming clip under an image of a soccer match, garnering over 1.5 million views in a day (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References