I Was Lightning Before the Thunder

Submission 1,989

Part of a series on TikTok Photo Slideshows / Photo Mode. [View Related Entries]

About

I Was Lightning Before the Thunder refers to a meme on TikTok in which creators use a slowed remix of the song "Thunder" by Imagine Dragons in a photo slideshow trend, showing a character or person transition to a worse or wonky version of themselves labeled with "Thunda." The meme started within FlopTok circles on the app in late 2023.

Origin

On September 22nd, 2023, TikToker^[1] @hamburgerepic10 posted a Roblox video featuring an avatar that resembled Total Drama character Rudolph "Lightning" Jackson. The video's audio was the song "Thunder" by Imagine Dragons.^[2] However, the audio slowed down after the lyrics "I was lightning before the thunder." Over the course of one month, the video gained roughly 657,400 plays and 35,700 likes (shown below).

Others on the app started to use the sound^[3] of the video for their own content which was mostly photo slideshows that outlined what symbolically changed a character from lightning to thunder. For instance, the earliest known slideshow to use the sound was posted by TikToker^[4] @youresquiffy on September 28th, 2023, showing the character Eva Smith from the show An Inspector Calls, gaining roughly 570,700 plays and 81,500 likes in one month (recording shown below).

Spread

Going into October 2023, usage of the sound became increasingly common and viral. For instance, on October 9th, 2023, TikToker^[5] @akustiger posted a slideshow that transitioned between George Washington and fan art of him, gaining roughly 2.3 million plays and 441,800 likes in 11 days (photos shown below).

On October 16th, 2023, TikToker^[6] @kenoadobo posted a slideshow with an AI-generated Joe Biden image, gaining roughly 16.7 million plays and 2.7 million likes in four days (photos shown below).

During the same timeframe, video iterations also surfaced on the app. For instance, on October 8th, 2023, TikToker^[7] @fartlord09 posted a video in which she revealed suggestive doodles in her school notes, gaining roughly 967,400 plays and 204,500 likes in 12 days (shown below).

Over the course of one month, the trend's primary TikTok sound^[3] had amassed over 122,900 posts.