Someone Cooked Here

Submission 40,079

Part of a series on Let Him Cook / Let That Boy Cook. [View Related Entries]

About

Someone Cooked Here is a quote from Walter White in Breaking Bad which became associated with the catchphrase "Let Him Cook" in 2023, leading to the frame's usage as a reaction image as well as a TikTok sound. Usage of the Someone Cooked Here meme portrayed the pre-existence of someone "cooking," as in, someone had plotted, strategized or honed their craft in the space being referenced. On TikTok, the sound was predominantly used by women to infer female-inspired traits in men, indicative of an ex-girlfriend who instilled a piece of feminine knowledge. The gender roles later reversed, evident in videos made by men about women with male-inspired traits.

Origin

On September 25th, 2011, season 4, episode 11 of Breaking Bad titled "Crawl Space" aired on American television.^[1] In one scene, Walter White realized that someone else had been cooking meth in Gustavo Fring's facility, stating, "Someone cooked here" (YouTube^[2] upload shown below).

In late 2022, usage of the phrase "let him hook" peaked in memes.^[3] Around the same time, on November 24th, 2022, the X^[4] gimmick account @breaking_frames posted the "someone cooked here" frame, gaining roughly 3,100 likes in nine months. The first known viral usage of the frame was posted by X^[5] user @DaTruthDT on December 16th, 2022, gaining roughly 4,100 likes in eight months (shown below).

Spread

Going into early 2023, usage of the "someone cooked here" frame as a reaction image persisted on X. For instance, on March 12th, 2023, X^[6] user @JoshEvanoff replied to YouTuber Cr1TiKaL with the frame, gaining roughly 18,200 likes in five months. On April 17th, X^[7] user @xkhyamix posted a similar reply to a Ron DeSantis adjacent tweet, receiving roughly 4,100 likes in four months.

TikTok Trend

On August 19th, 2023, TikToker^[8] @ritzecracker posted a video that used a greenscreen template of the scene (likely from YouTuber^[9] Green Screens by Murdoink), placing Walter White saying the phrase in front of a maxed out "leg extensions machine," gaining roughly 1.1 million plays and 114,000 likes in 11 days (shown below, left). Many on the app started to use the video's sound.^[10] For instance, one of the first viral posts was uploaded by TikToker^[11] @kateconover2 on August 22nd, regarding a man with nice bedding, inferring that he recently had a girlfriend. The video received roughly 5.3 million plays and 973,700 likes in six days (shown below, right).

Other TikToks^[12] following the trend also surfaced on August 22nd, 2023, leading to many iterations thereafter. By August 28th, 2023, the trend's primary sound^[10] had amassed over 17,900 uses.