I Have Died Every Day Waiting For You

About

I Have Died Every Day Waiting For You refers to a drawing of a duck with a long neck inspired by a picture of the silhouette of a person with their hands behind their head with the text "I have died every day waiting for you" overlaid. The image was particularly popular on Tumblr and Reddit in the mid-2010s and has been referenced in numerous jokes in the years since.

Origin

"I have died every day waiting for you" is a lyric from Christina Perri's "A Thousand Years," taken from the Twilight: Breaking Dawn soundtrack.

The image macro of the silhouetted figure featuring the lyric appears to have been made in early 2013. On January 13th, 2013, it was posted as the header of the Livejournal^[1] account alwayswithjonas. While it is unclear who first created the duck drawing, it was first posted to Tumblr^[2] by memeblock on May 29th, 2013, where it gained over 1 million notes in eight years (shown below).

Spread

The picture continued to spread on Tumblr over the following several years, eventually inspiring reposts to other social media sites as well as variations. On November 2nd, 2015, the original post was submitted to /r/funny^[3] by user blarted, gaining over 11,500 points before being archived. On October 1st, 2015, Tumblr user teafortteu^[4] posted art of the duck with the words "Darling don't be afraid, I have loved you for a thousand years" (shown below, left) which is the next lyric in Christina Perri's "A Thousand Years." On November 3rd, Redditor Tatsputin posted a colorized version of the duck to /r/funny,^[5] gaining over 330 points (shown below, right).

The post continued being referenced in the years since it peaked in popularity. For example, on May 2nd, 2021, Twitter user @Extra_Judecial^[6] posted a parody of a Givenchy tweet using the silhouette, gaining over 50 retweets and 1,200 likes (shown below).

Search Interest

External References