Humans Saw This and Invented Excel

Submission 4,774

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About

Humans Saw This and Invented Excel is a catchphrase used in a series of memes in which an aesthetically beautiful landscape is shown alongside a variation of the phrasal template "Humans Saw This and Invented X," with "X" being an invention the poster considers unnatural, oppressive or one that distracts people from enjoying the natural beauty of life, with some examples including "data warehouses," "calculus," "Excel" and "capitalism." The meme, which is often set to the song "Intro" by Black Country, New Road, was popularized on TikTok in late August 2024 and gained viral spread to X / Twitter that month.

Origin

In early August 2024, TikTokers began to post videos in which they film a beautiful landscape and attach a caption to it about how they have no desire to start a LinkedIn page and join the workforce when such beauty exists.

One of the earliest known examples of this was posted on August 9th, 2024, by TikToker^[1] @g1o_paksashvili, garnering over 3.4 million views in a month. That month, several other videos were uploaded to TikTok^[2] using a similar format. The videos are set to "Intro" by Black Country, New Road.

On August 24th, TikToker^[3] @travelyourtwenties posted a variation on the meme, also set to "Intro," in which they pan over a mountain range, captioned, "Humans saw THIS and invented Excel?" garnering over 8.8 million views in two weeks. This became the most popular phrasal template going forward.

Spread

The meme spread over the following days, including outside of TikTok to X. On August 28th, 2024, TikToker^[4] @lillylovestheocean posted a version of the meme showcasing ocean landscapes under the caption, "humans saw this and created calculus," garnering over 5 million views in a week.

On the same day, X^[5] user @ghosttyped posted four photographs, writing, "bay area humans saw this daily and decided to invent b2b saas," garnering over 8,400 likes in a week. On August 29th, X^[6] user @thamsla posted a version of the meme reading, "humans saw this and still created Deloitte," garnering over 18,000 likes in a week. Deloitte is a Canadian company that offers audit, consulting, tax and financial advisory services.

Also on August 29th, 2024, X^[7] user @netcapgirl posted a version of the meme about humans inventing data warehouses, garnering over 31,000 likes in a week. On September 1st, TikToker^[8] @lilli.kayy posted a version of the meme captioned, "Humans saw this and thought grades determine life," garnering over 2.2 million views in five days.

On September 5th, X^[9] user @blackmetalkvlti quote-reposted a video of someone walking through a snowy forest at night, writing, "Humans saw this and invented black metal," garnering over 2,600 likes in a day. On the same day, Dexerto^[10] published an article about the trend.