Mom's Spaghetti

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About

Mom's Spaghetti is a bait-and-switch copypasta derived from the lyrics of Eminem's 2002 hit rap single "Lose Yourself." Originating from the 4chan imageboard community, it is a notable example of spaghetti stories that usually start out as a personal anecdote about an embarrassing or socially awkward episode before ending abruptly with a sudden appearance of spaghetti.

Palms are sweaty
Knees weak, arms are heavy
Vomit on my sweater already
Mom's spaghetti

Origin

Prior to the emergence of spaghetti stories in 2010, various excerpts from Eminem's "Lose Yourself," including "mom's spaghetti," have been used as the title of blog posts or discussion threads, most notably on the automobile enthusiast forum LS1TECH^[3] in April 2003, 4chan's /r9k/ board^[4] in April 2008 and FARK's current event forum^[5] in November 2011. Like most spaghetti stories that came before, the "Mom's Spaghetti" copypasta originated from 4chan sometime in early 2012 with the earliest known mention found in a greentext story (shown below) posted on April 19th.

Lyrics

"Mom's spaghetti" is a memorable line from the lyrics of Eminem's 2002 hip hop single "Lose Yourself,"^[2] which follows the day-to-day struggles dealt by "B-Rabbit," the main protagonist character played by the rapper himself in the 2002 American hip hop drama film 8 Mile.^[1] Originally released on October 22th, 2002 as the first single of the 8 Mile original soundtrack, the song is considered Eminem's most critically acclaimed and commercially successful single to date. Following its release, "Lose Yourself" became the first rap song to be awarded the Academy Award for Best Original Song and also earned five Grammy nominations in 2003.

His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy
There's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti
He's nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready to drop bombs,
but he keeps on forgetting what he wrote down,
the whole crowd goes so loud
He opens his mouth, but the words won't come out
He's choking how, everybody's joking now
The clock's run out, time's up over, bloah!

Spread

Given the lyrical premise of "Lose Yourself," which begins with an aspiring rapper nervously trying to recall his verses on stage, not to mention its inclusion of "mom's spaghetti" in the rhyme scheme, the song was already well-suited for 4chan's spaghetti story pranks that often explore personal stories that are frightening or socially awkward in nature. On April 21st, 2012, two days after the copypasta was posted on 4chan, a similar spaghetti story was submitted to Bodybuilding Forum^[7] by user Tko38.

In the following months, more variations of "mom's spaghetti" posts continued to surface on 4chan's /b/ (random), /v/ (video game) and /r9k/ boards.^[11]^[12] On May 1st, the earliest known instance from 4chan was reblogged by Memebase^[14] in a post titled "Lose Yourself in This Best Spaghetti Story Yet."

On May 26th, the Facebook page^[8] for 4chan's /b/ board posted a status update featuring a "spaghetti-heavy" variation of the copypasta.

On May 28th, the same version of the "mom's spaghetti" story from /b/'s Facebook page was reposted on Bodybuilding Forum^[9] by user bl0wj. On the following day, the spaghetti-heavy version was featured on Tumblr^[13] with a photoshopped image of spaghetti and meatball running down from Eminem's hands. The post was well-received on Tumblr, gaining more than 7,900 notes in the span of a month.

his palms are sweaty, knees weak
arms spaghetti
There’s vomit on his spaghetti already,
mom’s spaghetti
He’s spaghetti, but on the surface he
looks calm and ready to drop spaghetti
but he keeps on forgetting what he
spaghetti

On May 30th, Redditor drokcab reposted the same message in the comments of a Reddit thread titled "What's the most accidentally inappropriate thing you've ever done?"^[10] which spawned a string of comments featuring additional verses from "Lose Yourself."

"Mom's Spaghetti" Restaurant

On September 29th, 2021, Eminem opened a "Mom's Spaghetti" restaurant in Detroit, Michigan, which exclusively serves spaghetti and meatballs. On December 30th, 2021, The New York Times^[15] published a review of the location, writing the food was not "Italian cooking" but "downright Motherly," and received quotes from locals and tourists who were enthused by their experience visiting.