Sensitive Young Man

About

Sensitive Young Man is an archetypical character and slang term that gained virality in memes in 2024, which describes a young man who is misunderstood by those around them due to his disregard for more basic values in favor of those more spiritual, leading to them failing to fit. Sharing similarity to the Literally Me meme trope, the meme character spawned both sincere and ironic memes as it spread online.

Origin

The generally recognized prototype of the "sensitive young man" trope is the protagonist of the 1774 novel The Sorrow of Young Werther, a young man named Werther who suffers from unrequited love for a young woman who is engaged to another.^[1] The epistolary novel relays the story of Werther's emotional sufferings, with Werther ultimately taking his own life. The trope of an emotional and sensitive young man failing to fit in society has extensively been used in literature and other media both before and after the novel.

Prior to its popularization in 2024, the phrase saw some use in memes online. For example, on June 2nd, 2023, X^[2] user @wittgenfine made a post about "sensitive young man physiongnomy" that received over 490 reposts and 6,700 likes in one year (shown below).

On March 25th, 2024, X^[3] user @dopaminedrank posted a video of a man working out with weights while holding his body above ground with core strength, captioned, "what do you think is harder than this?" replying, "being a sensitive young man with a heart of gold." The post (shown below) received over 2.5 million views, 5,600 reposts and 62,000 likes in eight months, assisting the popularization of the expression online in 2024.

Spread

Throughout 2024, memes based on the expression saw viral spread online, particularly on X / Twitter. For example, on May 8th, 2024, X^[4] user @theOGsemletra made a post describing Kavinsky's song "Nightcall" as "the sensitive young man anthem." The post (shown below) garnered over 190 reposts and 2,500 likes in six months.

On June 11th, 2024, X^[5] user @Marcus_cel posted a Silence, X meme that received over 4,900 reposts and 53,000 likes in five months (shown below).

In October 2024, caption memes about Sensitive Young Man Autumn, a meme parodying the Hot Girl Summer trend, gained popularity. For example, on October 8th, X^[6] user @oldstocky posted an image of actor Jude Law captioned with the phrase, with the post gaining over 370 reposts and 5,100 likes in one month (shown below).

Related Memes

Literally Me Syndrome

Literally Me refers to a series of images in which a certain individual relates to characters from films, TV shows and other media, usually outsider figures with certain redeemable qualities. The images are used to poke fun at these individuals due to their supposed lack of the positive qualities that the film characters possess.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References