The Horrors Persist But So Do I

Submission 25,831

Part of a series on Catchphrases. [View Related Entries]

About

The Horrors Persist But So Do I is a catchphrase popularized through a series of image macros depicting a guinea pig with pink sunglasses driving a pink toy car. The phrase is likely inspired by the similar phrase The Horrors Are Endless, But I Stay Silly and was popularized throughout 2023, with some of the earliest examples appearing in April and May of that year.

Origin

It is unclear who first used the phrase "the horrors persist but so do I." On January 25th, 2023, the phrase "The Horrors Are Endless, But I Stay Silly" was first used in a meme on Tumblr^[1] by user junoinfernal, becoming a popular memetic catchphrase over the following months. The earliest known post of the exact phrase "the horrors persist but so do I" is a March 31st, 2023 post by X^[2] user @MajorasMouse, garnering around nine likes in eight months. On April 5th, Tumblr^[3] user secretsfromwholecloth posted a photograph of a cross stitch of the phrase, garnering over 37,000 notes in seven months (shown below).

Spread

On May 24th, 2023, Facebook^[4] user Aria Carter posted an image macro using the phrase over an image of a guinea pig driving a small pink toy car, which was seemingly taken by now-deleted social media user ThingsMyGuineaPigDoes^[5] on an unknown date, garnering over 26,000 shares and 2,400 reactions in six months (shown below).

On May 26th, X^[6] user @maskofbun posted the meme, writing, "i want to redraw this with teru vash," garnering over 5,800 likes and 900 quote-reposts in six months. The post inspired several redraws in the quote-reposts, including two redraws that day by X^[7]^[8] users @gem1ny and @bluecummers that garnered over 40,000 likes and 2,200 likes respectively in six months (shown below, left and right).

On July 18th, iFunny^[9] user LordSwole posted an image macro of a close-up knight's helmet under the phrase, garnering over 8,800 smiles in four months (shown below).

On September 6th, Instagram^[10] user snarkynurses posted an image macro using the original image captioned, "When my mom asks how work is going," garnering over 438,000 likes in two months (shown below, left). On September 18th, Instagram^[11] user girlyzar posted a similar meme that gained over 300,000 likes in the same span of time. On October 10th, Facebook^[12] user Dark Salty Witch posted a version of the meme that gained over 5,500 shares and 2,700 reactions in a month (shown below, right).