I Am Living in Your Walls

About

I Am Living in Your Walls refers to a series of memes in which a person a person claims to be living inside meme recipient's walls. The phrase, spawned by a viral TikTok exchange in April 2021, was originally used as a way of provoking mentally ill individuals, although in memes the original meaning has sometimes been abandoned.

Origin

Prior to April 14th, 2021, TikTok user white_senpxi commented on a video posted by user sorryimcailey, writing "Awwww this is so cute *Sends a SWAT team to your exact address." After sorryimcailey wrote that they didn't think the joke was funny and stated that they struggle with paranoia, TikTok user jojosbizarrecontent replied, "I am living in your walls." The original TikTok and sorryimcailey's TikTok profile are no longer available.

On April 14th, Twitter^[1] user @agayhomosexual and iFunny^[2] user whagrl made the earliest posts with a screenshot of the comments (shown below). The post received viral spread on all major platforms in mid-April 2021; for example, an April 15th reposts by Instagram^[3][4] users largetrap2 and yung.crippling.depression received over 57,000 likes and 96,600 likes in six months. An April 15th repost by iFunny^[5] user DiagnosedCancerPatient gained over 260 smiles in the same period.

Spread

Following the viral spread of the post, phrases "I am living in your walls" and "I'm in your walls" gained popularity online as a way of provoking mentally ill individuals by posting them in the comments to their social media posts. For example, on May 12th, 2021, Redditor^[6] /r/Smartydillion06 posted a screenshot of the comment being posted in comments of a TikTok user with schizophrenia. On May 25th, iFunny user Intamin posted a screenshot of comment section on a TikTok post by sorryimcailey filled with "I'm living in your walls" spam (shown below, center). On June 9th, 2021, Redditor^[8] TommyJazz17 posted a text post consisting of the phrase "IM LIVING IN YOUR WALLS" written over and over again in /r/mentalhealth subreddit (shown below, right).

On April 22nd, iFunny^[9] user Quoataballs posted the earliest found meme that referenced the original exchange, a Trollge Schizoposting GIF Caption that gained 16 smiles in six months (shown below, left).

Starting in May, along with popularization of the comment spam practice, memes captioned "I'm Living In Your Walls" or in a similar way gained spread online, primarily on iFunny. On May 17th, Instagram^[10] user cheemsitz posted a Cheems meme captioned with the phrase, with the post gaining over 14,800 likes in five months (shown below, center). A next-day repost by iFunny^[11] user Cilberto received over 12,400 smiles on the app. On June 24th, iFunny^[12] user Herne_the_Hunter made a post that received over 8,400 smiles (shown below, right).

The phrase maintained its popularity in memes in the following months, with some examples abandoning the original meaning for humorous purposes and pop culture references.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References