Me Singing Both Parts

Submission 7,377

About

Me Singing Both Parts is an image macro and phrasal template series featuring two screenshots from the 2000 comedy film Scary Movie of the character Ray in a tanktop and another shot of the tanktop tied through the neck revealing his abs. Online, people caption the images with jokes about singing the male and female parts of duets, with the regular tanktop representing the male and the tied tanktop representing the female.

Origin

On July 7th, 2000, the film Scary Movie premiered in the United States.^[1] In the film, the character Ray asks a friend Greg (portrayed by Shawn Wayans and Lochlyn Munro, respectively) if his tanktop makes him "look gay." When Bobby answers "no," Ray ties the tanktop through his neck to reveal his abs and asks, "How about now?" On May 31st, 2009, YouTuber amcanes posted the clip and received more than 292,000 views in less than 11 years (shown below).

On November 27th, 2016, Twitter^[2] user @OFFTIME posted an image of a person with multiple heads overlaid atop the photo. They captioned the image "Me singing both parts of the Phantom of Opera," the earliest known usage of the phrase in a meme context (shown below, left).

Over the next few years, the phrase was used in a variety of contexts, including to express singing both parts of a duet (example below, center).

On November 23rd, 2019, Twitter ^[3] user @IKEXPASTEL tweeted the image of Ray wearing the shirts. They captioned the image, "This picture definitely sums me up in a nutshell lol get you a man that can do both! #femtop #queer" (shown below, right).

On April 27th, 2020, Twitter^[4] user @yung_starbucks tweeted the image of Wayans with the caption "Me rapping both parts in Promiscuous." This is the earliest known example of the meme (shown below).

Spread

That day, several viral tweets popularized the format. Twitter^[5] user @xnthone tweeted the image with the caption "Me rapping both parts in 'Cash Shit.'" The tweet received more than 159,000 likes and 38,000 retweets in less than one week (shown below, left). Hours later, Twitter^[6] user @Eugene30005 shared the image with the caption "Me singing both parts on American Boy," which received mroe than 120,000 lieks and 27,000 retweets in less than one week (shown below, center).

Over the next few days, the meme continued to spread. For example, on April 29th, Twitter^[7] user @RodeoTheAlbum tweeted, "me singing both Travis Scott and SZA’s parts on Love Galore." The post received more than 43,000 likes and 12,000 retweets in less than two days (shown below, right).

On April 30th, Billboard^[8] reported the meme.