Person On Leash

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About

Person On Leash, also known as Ship Dynamics Leash Meme or Person Holding Leash, refers to a minimal line drawing of an unenthused person holding another person with a devious smile on a leash as if holding them back from doing something. The image grew in prominence as an exploitable starting in late 2020. In early 2022 photoshops and redraws of the drawing became popularized on TikTok along with a sped-up mashup of the songs "American Boy" by Estelle and "Chanel" by Frank Ocean. The format is an extension of the ship dynamics meme, which highlights aspects of popular shipping dynamics.

Origin

The earliest known upload of the image was posted by Twitter^[1] user @ny0ungs on December 15th, 2020, in a post comparing the drawing to an image of a K-pop star with another K-pop star on a leash, gaining three likes in a year (shown below). This does not appear to be the original upload, which is currently unknown.

Spread

The format spread over the course of 2021 as people photoshopped it or used object labeling to change the context. For example, on January 20th, 2021, Twitter^[3] user @cursebreakker posted an edit of the image showing Star Wars character Kylo Ren holding Rey on a leash, gaining around 600 likes in a year (shown below, left). On February 12th, Twitter^[4] user @dekudni then posted a My Hero Acadamia edit of the image, gaining over 6,100 likes in 11 months (shown below, right). The post was reshared to Tumblr^[5] on February 13th, gaining over 2,400 notes in 11 months.

On April 5th, a photoshopped edit referencing The Falcon and The Winter Soldier was uploaded to Tumblr,^[6] gaining over 1,500 notes in nine months. On April 14th, another My Hero Academia edit was posted to Tumblr,^[7] gaining over 14,000 notes in the same span of time (shown below). In May 2021, the template was added to Imgflip,^[2] gaining over 10,100 views in nine months.

On April 29th, 2021, Tumblr^[8] user cadaver-creative posted "ok but can we all agree that the best villain troupe is just this," along with the original image with the leash holder labeled "henchman" and the one on the leash "villain," gaining over 51,000 notes in nine months (shown below, left). On July 17th, Instagram^[9] user wholesome.tofu posted a version where the holder is "calm gf" and the one on the leash is "hyper bf," gaining over 22,800 likes in seven months (shown below, right). It was reposted to Twitter^[10] in August, gaining over 63,000 likes and 14,000 retweets in six months.

TikTok / "Liking This American Boy" Trend

In January 2022, photoshopped versions of the meme became part of a trend on TikTok^[11] set to a remix of the songs "American Boy" by Estelle and "Chanel" by Frank Ocean. The trend, popular among Spanish and English TikTokers, shows each character labeled with captions about the user's friendship dynamics with an IRL friend, then cuts to images of each friend (examples shown below). The original sound garnered over 500,000 uses by February 8th, 2022.