About

Kissing Barrier is a redraw meme trend in which one character is drawn attempting to kiss another, but failing because the brim of the character's hat, labelled a "kissing barrier," is in their way. The meme was started by X / Twitter user and artist @nycnouu in late October 2025 and went viral over the following weeks, inspiring numerous examples on X and spreading to sites like Reddit and Facebook as people replaced the two with various pop culture characters.

Origin

On October 29th, 2025, X^[1] user @nycnouu posted a drawing of a woman struggling to kiss a smiling man with a long-brimmed cap because the cap, labelled "kissing barrier," is in their way, garnering over 37,000 likes and 2,900 reposts in two weeks. The post reads, "what would you do chat??"

Spread

The art of the two attempting to kiss inspired numerous redraws over the following weeks in late October and November 2025.

On October 31st, 2025, X^[2] user @sez__sez posted a redraw of the meme featuring characters from Gravity Falls, garnering over 6,900 likes in two weeks.

On November 3rd, X^[3] user @miauiz posted a version of the meme featuring Glinda and Elphaba from Wicked, garnering over 130,000 likes in just over a week.

On November 4th, 2025, X^[4] user @BleedingIvory posted a redraw featuring Genshin Impact characters, which was reposted to the /r/GenshinGays^[5] subreddit the next day, garnering over 7,400 likes on the former and 370 upvotes on the latter in a week.

That day, Instagram^[6] user tooneychaotic posted a redraw of the meme featuring Phineas and Ferb characters that gained over 4,600 likes in a week.

Later that day, X^[7] user @mopahu posted a redraw that gained over 5,900 likes in a week.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References