Me: :( vs. Me: :)

Submission 5,066

About

Me: :( vs. Me: :) is a phrasal template in which people express things that make them happy by placing that thing between two emoticons, one sad and one happy. The format follows this template:

me: : (

[something the user enjoys]

me: : )

Origin

The earliest known iteration of the meme was posted by Twitter ^[1] user @mjngyu on March 31st, 2015 (shown below).

Spread

Over the next four years, the meme continued to grow in popularity. On December 26th, Twitter^[2] user @sadgirlkms tweeted the variation "me: :-) brain: dont forget to feel terrible me: :-(" The tweet received more than 940 retweets and 1,700 likes in three years (shown below, left).

On January 7th, 2019, Twitter^[3] user @softjinwoo tweeted a version about the K-Pop group Super Junior. The post received more than 340 retweets and 600 likes in less than one year (shown below, center). Several days later, on January 13th, Twitter^[4] user @Megatronic13 tweeted, "Dentist: let me take a quick look at your teeth Me: oh you mean my mouth knives? :) Dentist: I’m not calling them that Me: :(" Within six months, the tweet received more than 360 retweets and 2,700 likes (shown below, right).

On March 25th, 2019, Twitter^[8] user @zephanijong tweeted a variation that read "me: :( my bf: baby me: :)" The post received more than 22,000 retweets and 81,000 likes in three weeks (shown below).

Me: :( / ASCII Sparkle

In February 2019, the meme evolved with the addition of the ASCII Sparkle On February 15th, 2019, Twitter user @sydophile^[5] made a post which read "me: :(" then featured ASCII art of the moon in the night sky. The tweet gained more than 101,000 retweets and 244,000 likes (shown below).

Several media outlets covered the variations of the meme, including PopBuzz^[6] and The Daily Dot. ^[7]