Mi Tink Mi Gwaan Tek Mi Own Life

Submission 12,298

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

About

Mi Tink Mi Gwaan Tek Mi Own Life is a catchphrase that is meant to read "I think I'm going to take my own life" as if spoken in Jamaican patois. The phrase was popularized through a Whisper image macro in which it is presented over a photograph of the character Grant Mitchell (Ross Kemp) from the British soap opera EastEnders. The meme was originally posted to Instagram by incellectuals_ealing
in February 2024. It became increasingly popularized over the course of the year, particularly on X / Twitter.

Origin

On February 6th, 2024, Instagram^[11] user incellectuals_ealing posted a a Whisper^[12] image macro consisting of the phrase, "Mi tink me gwaan tek mi own life," over a picture of the character Grant Mitchell from EastEnders, played by British actor Ross Kemp. The post garnered over 7,000 likes in nine months.

Spread

On February 6th, 2024, X^[10] user @Sgt_Suckdown posted, "Mi tink me gwaan tek mi ohn life eh," garnering around 10 likes in nine months. On February 8th, Redditor u/hamsta5 posted a cropped version of the Grant Mitchell image macro to the subreddit /r/redscarepod,^[1] garnering over 160 upvotes in eight months.

On February 12th, X^[2] user @bighealthyfr posted the phrase over an image of a man standing in the street, garnering around 100 likes in eight months. On May 25th, X^[9] user @platinummolar posted a version of the meme in which the phrase is edited over a photo of a sad clown on the bus, garnering over 8,000 likes in six months.

On August 7th, X^[3] user @dj_laundryy posted the phrase on its own, garnering around 400 likes in three months. On September 28th, a screenshot of the post was posted by Instagram^[4] user imunchie2, garnering over 1,800 likes in two months.

On October 23rd, 2024, X^[5] user @KYLEWILDFERN posted the original meme, garnering over 65,000 likes and 6,000 reposts in a month. On November 6th, X^[6] user @mountbellyache reposted it, writing, "this meme keeps popping into my head at random intervals like a catchy song," garnering over 73,000 likes and 4,000 reposts in five days. A screenshot of the post was reposted by Instagram^[7] user wot.the.heck on November 9th, garnering over 2,000 likes in two days.

On November 10th, content creator Justin Whang quote-reposted an image on X^[8] of actor Brad Pitt with dreadlocks in 2012, editing the phrase over the image, garnering over 83,000 likes and 5,000 reposts in a day.