Talks a Lot, Listens

About

Talks a Lot, Listens is a wholesome ship dynamic meme depicting one character, often from a specific fandom, talking a lot and their partner happily listening. The original format was posted to Twitter in February 2021 and became a prominent exploitable meme and redraw over the following years, particularly on Facebook.

Origin

On February 14th, 2021, Twitter^[1] user @WholesomeMeme posted a meme showing two stick figures talking. The one on the left is surrounded by a wall of text and captioned "talks a lot" and the figure on the right is captioned "listens." The post garnered over 24,500 likes in two years (shown below). It was notably reposted by Twitter^[2] user @RespectfulMemes that same day, garnering over 23,000 likes in the same span of time.

Spread

The meme started to become the subject of edits over the following months, often drawing over the two stick figures to depict them as characters from a given fandom or placing them next to people who follow the shown dynamic. For example, on March 2nd, 2021, a Redditor drew the stick figures as Boruto characters and posted it to /r/Boruto,^[3] garnering over 450 upvotes in two years (shown below, left). On March 14th, the Enhypen PH Facebook^[4] page posted a meme applying the figures to members of the K-pop group Enhypen, garnering over 1,700 reactions in two years (shown below, right).

On December 26th, 2022, the Ｓａｔｕｓｈｉ氷菓 Facebook^[5] page posted a version of the meme referencing Hunter x Hunter, garnering over 17,000 reactions and 2,600 shares in six months (shown below).

Some versions of the meme abandon the initial template and apply the captions "listens" and "talks a lot" to other images. For example, on January 9th, 2023, the Facebook^[6] page OPMOS Philippines posted a One Piece meme featuring the captions, garnering over 5,000 reactions and 1,000 shares in five months (shown below, left). On January 13th, the Hanzo蔵半 Facebook^[7] page shared a meme similar to this that garnered over 82,000 reactions and 14,000 shares in the same span of time (shown below, right).

On May 17th, 2023, Twitter^[8] user @IIKalee posted a version of the meme based on Link and Zelda from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, garnering over 48,000 likes in a month (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References