About

The Sinking Town Trend is an animation meme trend set to the Japanese song "Sinking Town" by Yoeko Kurahashi in which characters from a given fandom are animated as cardboard or paper puppets on a stage. The song was first released in 2002, and the animation meme was popularized on TikTok and YouTube in early June 2025.

Origin

On September 27th, 2002, Yoeko Kurahashi released her song "Sinking Town."^[1] On January 29th, 2019, YouTuber^[2]
無断転載専用垢 reposted a fan-made music video for the song by an unknown person, garnering over 2 million views in six years.

On May 18th, 2025, TikToker^[3] @mdkm444 posted an animation set to the song based on the Cookie Run video games in which everything is animated as if part of a paper-made play, garnering over 1.2 million views in a month. This is the earliest known version of the animation meme

Spread

The trend continued to spread throughout May 2025, garnering significant attention in June of that year.

For example, on June 5th, 2025, TikToker^[4] @skxtchb3ar posted an animation set to the song based on the Five Nights at Freddy's series, garnering over 1.5 million views in five days.

On the same day, YouTuber^[5] breakbreakbreak posted a version based on Roblox, garnering over 101,000 views in the same span of time.

On June 9th, 2025, TikToker^[6] @dogetfox posted a version of the meme that references the Dark Mango Psychology memes, garnering over 1.3 million views in a day.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References