She Goes to Another School

Submission 39,243

About

You Wouldn't Know Her, She Goes to Another School is a widespread response which, in several variations, is used to avoid admitting to not actually having a girlfriend. Online, the phrase has been used as a caption in numerous memes. This trope is also known as Girlfriend in Canada.^[1]

Origin

While the earliest mention of a person pretending to have a girlfriend, a fiance or a wife in a distant place which cannot be easily be checked to increase their social status is unknown, the trope has appeared in a number of books, films, TV series and other media since the pre-Internet era.^[1] Some of the notable examples include The Breakfast Club character Brian Johnson pretending to have a girlfriend in Niagara Falls to avoid admitting to being a virgin. Another example is Napoleon Dynamite titual character Napoleon lying to his friend Pedro that he has a girlfriend in Oklahoma (scene shown below, left). In episode 16 "PDA" of season seven of The Office character Kevin claims that he had intercource in the office with a person "who goes to another school" (scene shown below, right).

The earliest known viral meme based on the trope was posted by Twitter^[2] user @imteddybless on January 5th, 2015 (shown below). The tweet received over 4,700 retweets and 12,600 likes in four years and was widely circulated online in the following years.^[3]^[4]^[5]

Spread

Starting in August 2018, memes about girlfriends "from another school" gained popularity in /r/dankmemes and other meme communities on Reddit. For example, a They're the Same Picture meme by Redditor^[6] xxnormieslayerxx received over 540 upvotes in six months (shown below, left). A November 15th, 2018, meme by Redditor^[7] Aravini received over 6,500 upvotes in six months (shown below, right).

In July 2019, the format saw a surge in popularity on Reddit^[8]^[9] in connection to Storm Area 51 memes as a part of Me Running From Area 51 subformat (examples shown below. left and right).