Smoke Detector Beeping

Confirmed 65,152

About

Smoke Detector Beeping and Smoke Detector Chirping, also known as Smoke Alarm Beep and Smoke Alarm Chirp, refer to memes about people not changing batteries in smoke detectors in their homes once they start emitting a repeating beeping signal to indicate that they may not function properly due to low battery charge. In the early 2020s, the unwillingness to change batteries in smoke detectors became a stereotype associated with Black people, prompted by a viral TikTok and a series of viral posts on Twitter.

Origin

Dr. Drew and Adam Carolla were one of the first prominent comedians to joke about smoke detector alarms beeping after the duo noticed that several callers to their radio show Loveline would have smoke alarms chirping in the background of their call. The joke continued into a lasting bit on their radio show, with YouTuber^[18] Collapse posting one such clip from Loveline to YouTube on June 20th, 2009, gathering over 33,000 views in 14 years (seen below).

The sound of smoke detectors emitting a chirping sound has been associated with urban poverty since at least 2013. On March 11th, 2013, Caroline Center^[1] made a blog post "The Sound of Urban Poverty" about visiting the homes of the urban poor and always hearing the sound of a smoke detector whose batteries need replacing (extract shown below).

The repeating beeping sound of a smoke detector low on batteries has been a subject of jokes through the late 2010s. For example, on April 30th, 2018, Dril tweeted^[2] a joke that gained over 1,500 retweets and 9,500 likes in five years (shown below, left). On July 15th, 2018, Twitter^[3] user @alexlumaga posted a tweet that received over 270 retweets and 990 likes in five years (shown below, right).

The perceived notion that it's a common occurrence among Black people to ignore the need to replace batteries in their smoke detectors has been gaining traction online since at least the early 2020s. For example, on February 27th, 2020, Twitter^[4] user @Rose_Cranberry made a tweet urging Black people to change batteries in their smoke detectors which gained over 20 retweets and 460 likes in three years (shown below, left). On July 30th, 2021, Twitter^[5] user @jrbland tweeted "Black people… so y’all really don’t hear that smoke alarm beeping in your house?" The tweet (shown below, right) garnered over 90 retweets and 770 likes in two weeks.

On December 18th, 2022, TikToker^[6] @damedamian posted a humorous video comparing white people and Black people "chilling in their house," with the only difference being a single chirp of a smoke detector in the background during the second part. The video (shown below, left) received over 9.5 million views and 1.2 million likes in six months. On December 19th, @damedamian posted^[7] a duet with TikTok user @shaelovve who built upon the joke in her video, with the duet accumulating over 20.8 million views and 3.7 million likes in the same period (shown below, right).

Spread

The videos saw further spread through reposts, being reuploaded on Twitter^[8]^[9] multiple times in late 2022 and the first half of 2023.

On April 12th, 2023, Twitter^[10] user @harleybaghdad made a tweet about constantly hearing the smoke detector's low battery signal in Instagram reels and TikTok videos. The post gained over 620 retweets and 10,400 likes prior to being removed and majorly contributed towards launching the related discourse (shown below, left). On April 14th, 2023, an anonymous 4chan^[11] user made a /pol/ thread titled "NEW DOGWHISTLE DROPPED," referring to Black Americans as "beeping americans." The thread received over 330 replies from 200 posters (screenshot shown below, right).

Starting in May 2023, multiple memes based on the stereotype that Black Americans ignore the beeping of smoke detectors were shared on 4chan, Twitter and iFunny. For example, on May 7th, 2023, Twitter^[12] user @Spottedcanine made a tweet that gained over 200 retweets and 2,000 likes in one month (shown below, left). On June 5th, 2023, Twitter^[13] user @14froger14 posted an edited poster for Jordan Peele's film Nope captioned "Beep." The post (shown below, right) received over 360 retweets and 3,900 likes and was widely circulated in early June 2023.

On July 15th, 2023. Twitter^[14] user @bIiccy reuploaded a TikTok video of an interview with rapper Blueface in which the smoke detector chirps in the rapper's house (shown below). On July 17th, Twitter user @jeremykaufffman posted a video interview with^[15] a person who was awarded over $2 million for not passing a teacher's test that was recognized to be racially biased. In the video, a smoke detector in the man's house chirped three times. Both videos became subjects of online discussions^[16]^[17] due to the presence of the chirp in them.

On June 15th, 2023, conservative activist Jack Posobiec tweeted^[19] a clip from his talk show, featuring fellow Turning Point activist Charlie Kirk. Posobiec talks about Black American television show host Joy Reid posting a video with an audible smoke detector beep, saying that "it goes back to this meme that people who are dumb are just paying attention to their smoke alarm" (seen below).