I Know It Smell Crazy In There

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Part of a series on Catchphrases. [View Related Entries]

About

I Know It Smell Crazy In There is a catchphrase used to caption videos and images that most likely "smell crazy" if the internet user was physically there. The phrase was first coined on Twitter as early as 2017, however, it received the most mainstream attention starting in late September 2021 after a tweet using the phrase inspired controversy over allegations of racist undertones.

Origin

On December 17th, 2017, Twitter^[1] user @DontWorshipMe coined the catchphrase in a tweet that received no likes over the course of four years, despite being the earliest known use of the saying. The tweet (shown below) was a quote tweet of a video documenting the factory process of manufacturing rubber bands.

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On September 26th, 2021, Twitter^[2] user @LILAVYVERT quote tweeted a TikTok video shared via a tweet^[3] posted two days prior. The video shows a nightclub somewhere in India where many young, Indian people are dancing to "When that one song that comes on in the club." @LILAVYVERT quote tweeted it, using the phrase "I know it smell crazy in there". The tweet (shown below) received roughly 51,600 likes over the course of one month.

@LILAVYVERT's tweet, however, also received roughly 23,700 quote tweets over the course of one month. The quote tweets mostly revolved around @LILAVYVERT's statement allegedly being racist. @LILAVYVERT received the most amount of backlash from people of Indian descent. For instance, Twitter^[4] user @pinkfr1day tweeted, "they going slur for slur in the quotes wow" and received roughly 22,600 likes. This tweet commented on and poked fun at the Indians and the African-Americans in the quote tweets and replies being racist or derogatory to each other.

For the remainder of September 26th, Twitter^[5]^[6] users continued to post memes about the continued onslaught of quote tweets revolving around the controversial "I know it smell crazy in there" tweet. Memes about the controversy spread to other platforms in the days following. For example, on September 27th, 2021, Facebook^[7] page SmugResponse posted a Domino Effect style meme related to the catchphrase controversy. The meme (shown below) received roughly 380 reactions over the course of one month.

On September 29th, 2021, Twitter^[8] user @sewgiib tweeted the first known derivative use of the catchphrase using it for a quote tweet of a TikTok relating to Charli D'Amelio. The quote tweet (shown below) received roughly 19,500 likes over the course of one month. On October 2nd, 2021, Twitter^[9] user @ticketpfa quote tweeted a TikTok of young, white people dancing in a nightclub using the catchphrase. The tweet (shown below, right) received roughly 16,400 likes over the course of 20 days.

Going into the remainder of October 2021, Twitter users began using the phrase outside of its context as a racist controversy. For instance, Twitter^[10] user @ElectionLegal used the catchphrase paired with a picture of Nikocado Avocado on October 2nd, 2021. Going into late October, Twitter^[11] user @GL0RYG1RL used the catchphrase in a quote tweet of a video showing "Boots of firefighters and police officers who decided to lose their job instead of getting vaccinated." Her tweet, posted on October 20th, 2021, received roughly 22,500 likes in two days and brought new attention to its usage on the platform.^[12]