"How Long" refers to a memorable quote uttered by the character Vanessa from the English soap opera EastEnders. Online, a clip of Vanessa saying the line has been used as the punchline to jokes about a lack of patience.

On August 15th, 2018, an episode of EastEnders in which the character Vanessa (portrayed by Zöe Lucker) discovers the secret hideout of the character Tanya (portrayed by Jo Joyner). Vanessa demands to know how long Tanya has had the hideout (shown below).^[1]

Several months later, Twitter ^[2] user @jsphdeal used the clip as the punchline to the jokes "just eat: the takeaway has accepted your ord-" Within two weeks, the post received more than 10,000 retweets, 36,000 likes and 3.2 million views (shown below).

On November 1st, Twitter user @yanseoks tweeted^[3] the video as the punchline to the joke "subway employees when i tell them i want a sub." Within one week, the post received more than 52,000 retweets and 142,000 likes (shown below).

The following week, Twitter^[4] @brokeangel tweeted the video as the punchline to the joke "straight men when they’ve been waiting for their girlfriend outside of Sephora for 52 seconds." The tweet received more than 3,400 retweets and 19,000 likes in three days (shown below).

On November 7th, Popbuzz^[5] posted a listicle about the meme.