Hidden Talent of Mine? Making Babies Laugh

Submission 30,673

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

About

Hidden Talent of Mine? Making Babies Laugh, also known as Guy Lunges at Camera, refers to a viral TikTok by user itsmacdoogle in which he tells that making babies laugh is his hidden talent, and then proceeds to repeatedly lunge at the screen while maintaining a frightening grimace. Following the viral spread of the video, it gained popularity in GIF captions and other memes.

Origin

On August 11th, 2020, TikTok^[1] user macdoogle (formerly macpeepeepoopoo) posted a humorous video in which he claimed that making babies laugh was his hidden talent, challenging parent users to duet with him. In the second part of the video, macdoogle , with water splashed upon his face as to give him an unhealthy look, makes a frightening grimace and repeatedly lunges at the camera, as if to scare a baby who might be watching the video. The post received over 10.7 million views, 1.6 million likes and 125,200 shares in three months (shown below).

Hidden talent of mine? Making babies laugh. I never fail, so please, duet this with your baby, and I can make them laugh.

The same facial expression has been used by macdoogle in a number of his other popular videos.

Spread

Starting on August 11th, 2020, the video gained popularity in duets on TikTok, with users showing the video to their children and younger siblings. For example, on that day, TikTok^[2] user yungleandad posted one of the earliest such duets, gaining over 227,800 likes in three months (shown below, left). On August 12th, TikTok^[3] user simbakamwendo made a post that received over 243,200 likes in the same period (shown below, center). A duet posted by user lolaspeaks_^[4] on August 18th gained over 1.5 million likes (shown below, right).

On August 18th, TikTok^[5] user jazmine_allyse posted a duet with macdoogle, with the video gaining over 823,600 likes in three months (shown below). On August 20th, Twitter^[6] user @jodecimob_ reposted the video, with the post gaining over 224,000 views, 4,300 retweets and 14,500 likes in three months. On the same day, Twitter^[7] account @WeiredestMp4s reposted the video, with the post gaining over 596,600 views, 10,200 retweets and 51,100 likes in three months. Also on the same day, YouTube^[8] user TORPE GAMING reuploaded the video, which garnered over 2.6 million views on YouTube in the same period.

Starting in mid-September 2020, the clip of macdoogle lunging at camera gained popularity in GIF captions on iFunny^[9] (shown below, left). For example, a GIF caption posted by iFunny^[10] user nikolas on September 12th gained over 4,400 smiles in two months. A Kaiserchino meme posted by iFunny user Crawlz gained 880 smiles in the same period (shown below, right).

In the following months, the GIF maintained moderate popularity on iFunny and Twitter, with a still image of macdoogle's face also being used in memes.