Russian Blue Flaming Skull / It's Not Just Anger

About

Russian Blue Flaming Skull or It's Not Just Anger refers to a series of Russian videos utilizing an exploitable image of a skull surrounded by blue flames set to a Russian cover of Skillet's "Monster" by RADIO TAPOK. The memes were popularized among Russian TikTok users in September 2023 as a form of shitposting, often posted alongside the phrase "It's not just anger," the first line sung in "Monster," also gaining popularity with English speakers. The skull also became a form of TikTok cult, with many users changing their profile pictures to the blue flaming skull.

Origin

The exact origins of the meme are unclear. One of the earliest known uses of the blue flaming skull image alongside the Russian version of "Monster" was posted by TikToker^[1] @sonysae on August 30th, 2023, placing the image next to one of Kenji from the anime Bungou Stray Dogs, garnering around 2,500 views in a week, garnering around 2,600 likes in a week. On August 31st, TikToker^[2] @ezt0p posted a slideshow consisting of several photoshopped memes and image macros featuring the blue skull, captioned, "it's not just anger that lives inside me," garnering over 171,000 views in a week (slide examples shown below). The blue skull image is commonly used online.^[3]

"This is not simple wrath
That lives inside of me
Trying to get out
I beg you to run away now, it's stronger than I am
It wants to get out so bad"

Spread

The blue flaming skull meme continued to spread over the following days, inspiring some TikTokers to change their profile pictures to the blue skull. On September 1st, 2023, TikToker^[4] @wortex_o posted a slideshow consisting of various colorations of the skull, garnering over 400,000 views in six days. On September 2nd, TikToker^[5] @eto_ne_prosto_gnev1 posted a slideshow where the skull multiplies with each slide, garnering over 1.3 million views in five days. On the same day, TikToker^[6] @matossot posted a video that gained over 1.6 million views in the same span of time (shown below).

On September 4th, TikToker^[7] @virlyik posted a video of a boy walking out of a changeroom wearing a hoodie with the blue flaming skull on it, garnering over 3.5 million views in three days (shown below, left). On September 5th, TikToker^[8] @sasha_kazax posted a video of the skull imposed over a teacher's face, garnering over 1.2 million views in two days (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References