My Beloved

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About

My Beloved is a catchphrase that is used in conjunction with a name in a person or a character to express adoration. Sharing its origin and often used together with Heart Locket GIF, the catchphrase gained popularity through memes and fan art created by stans of Dream SMP members and K-pop bands.

Origin

In early October 2020, an unknown user created a Heart Locket GIF using MakeSweet^[1] generator with a photograph of Bingus, captioning it "bingus my beloved," with the image going viral in now-defunct Binguscord Discord server (shown below). On October 11th, Tenor^[2] user Desphanitom uploaded the GIF. The GIF spawned both Heart Locket GIF and My Beloved memes.

Spread

In the following weeks, the GIF received viral spread through multiple reposts.^[3] On October 19th, Tumblr^[4] user pompadorbz posted the earliest known derivative media within the format, a fan art of the Danganronpa character Kiyotaka Ishimaru that received over 1,900 likes and reblogs in nine months (shown below, left). More edits and redraws of the original Bingus meme were posted (shown below, center and right).

On December 24th, Tenor^[5] user akechikun posted the earliest found derivative meme that used the generator, a tribute to YouTuber and Dream SMP member Ranboo (shown below, left). On December 28th, 2020, MakeSweet, the website used to generate Heart Locket GIFs, tweeted^[6] about a sudden influx of users, also posting about discovering the viral popularity of the Bingus version of the meme (shown below, right).

The Ranboo version of the meme gained viral popularity among fans of the YouTuber, with both Heart Locket GIF and the caption "My Beloved" spreading among fans of other Dream SMP members and among fans of K-pop bands. For example, on January 20th, 2021, Tenor^[7] user jxjxjx posted a Sana version of the Heart Locket GIF. On March 31st, 2020, Tenor^[8] user Aystre posted a Quackity version of the meme (shown below, right).

On June 20th, YouTuber Landon's agency ARKH bought digital billboard space on Times Square to display content promoting Minecraft streamer Ranboo, particularly the Ranboo My Beloved heart locket GIF that in the previous months grew to become a local meme within the streamer's community. Photographs and videos of the content being displayed on Times Square gained viral spread. For example, a tweet^[9] by @arkh received over 11,400 retweets and 90,300 likes in one day (shown below).

Starting approximately in May 2021, the catchphrase "my beloved" saw growing independent use, primarily as a caption for fan art of various people and characters and as a title for posts. For example, on May 21st, 2021, Twitter^[10] user @hourlyng posted a GIF of South Korean rapper Min Yoon-gi, writing "yoongi my beloved." The post received over 6,900 retweets and 21,800 likes. On June 29th, Redditor^[11] Jhent titled their video post "Metal Crates, my beloved" in the /r/Breath_of_the_Wild subreddit. On July 8th, Redditor^[12] sleepyLuki titled their fan art post "Ganyu my beloved! (´ω｀)" in the /r/Genshin_Impact subreddit.

Heart Locket GIF

Heart Locket GIF refers to an exploitable GIF format in which custom image and text are added onto an animated GIF of a red 3D heart locket opening. Generated with MakeSweet and popularized by a Bingus edit, the GIF format gained viral popularity in February 2021. The memes often combine an image of a person or a character with the catchphrase My Beloved.