I Can't Sleep. I Can Goodnight.

About

I Can't Sleep. I Can Goodnight refers to a series of memes based on a string of text messages where one person says they're tired and can't sleep followed by the recipient responding, "I can. Goodnight," dismissing their attempt to talk. The original meme was posted to Instagram in 2017 and inspired similar memes using the catchphrase as an exploitable over the following years.

Origin

On February 19th, 2017, OnSizzle^[1] archived a screenshot of a string of text messages from Instagram^[2] where one person says "Hey," followed by the recipient responding, "Hi." The next message is, "I can't sleep," followed by a response of, "I can gn" (shown below). The original Instagram post and page have been deleted. This is the earliest known upload of the text messages.

Spread

The meme received viral spread over the following months. On February 27th, 2017, Instagram^[3] page b.itchplease.ig posted the meme, gaining over 400 likes in five years. On April 8th, Facebook^[4] page Sarcasm posted a similar fake text meme where the final message reads "I can. Good night!" gaining over 318,000 reactions and 23,000 shares in five years (shown below, left). On September 23rd, the same Facebook^[5] page posted a meme similar to the couple texting in bed format using the texts, gaining over 343,000 reactions and 19,200 shares in five years (shown below, right). These are likely reuploads.

On June 3rd, 2020, Redditor MalfoyHolmes14 posted a version of the meme using a Persona 4 screenshot to r/Persona,^[10] gaining over 6,200 upvotes in two years (shown below).

In October 2021, artist lunaerim^[8] posted a Sonic the Hedgehog fan comic showing Knuckles and Rouge the Bat texting the messages to one another (shown below, left). The original post appears to have been removed, but was reuploaded to r/SonicTheHedgehog^[6] and r/memes^[7] with an additional bottom panel (shown below, right) on October 13th and 15th, gaining over 2,700 upvotes and 22,000 upvotes respectively in six months.

On October 26th, TikToker^[9] @respectableadult posted a voiced-over version of the Sonic meme, gaining over 18,000 views in six months (shown below). On April 21st, 2022, Facebook^[11] page D-Piddy posted the sonic meme with the additional Knuckles panel, gaining over 23,000 reactions and 18,000 shares in a week.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References