The Next Time That Somebody Tells You, “The Government Wouldn’t Do That,” Oh Yes They Would

Submission 30,601

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About

The Next Time That Somebody Tells You, “The Government Wouldn’t Do That,” Oh Yes They Would, refers to a TikTok sound that portrays skepticism about the government. It's originally the voice of YouTuber Wendigoon who creates mostly conspiracy theory related content. The TikTok trend using this catchphrase then started in late 2022 and continued into early 2023.

Origin

On September 30th, 2022, YouTuber^[1] Wendigoon posted a video titled, "That Time the CIA Faked a Vampire Attack to Take Over a Country." During his video's conclusion, at the 21:42-minute mark of the video, Wendigoon addressed his audience by saying, "And remember kids, the next time that somebody tells you, 'The government wouldn't do that,' oh yes they would" (shown below). Over the course of three months, the video earned roughly 1.5 million views.

On December 16th, 2022, TikToker^[2] 369audios posted a video that used the clip from Wendigoon's video and added the vaporwave song "Ｓｉｍｐｓｏｎｗａｖｅ１９９５" by FrankJavCee.^[3] Over the course of 17 days, the video received roughly 1.7 million plays and 210,400 likes (shown below, left). On December 21st, 2022, TikToker^[4] add0g used the sound^[5] in a video with text overlay reading, "you guys remember the guy who made a car run on water instead of gas and he committed soon after with no mental 21 health history," gaining roughly 1.3 million plays and 338,800 likes in 12 days (shown below, right).

Spread

Going into late December 2022 and January 2023, the sound gained traction as various TikTokers posted viral videos. Most of the videos used the same format, as in, adding text overlay that related to a conspiracy theory. For instance, on December 26th, 2022, TikToker^[6] ssojunicortez posted a video reading, "when the gov has only male trees that produce pollen in cities instead of female trees that produce fruit so no one gets free fruit and we all just get really sick and have allergies and need medication," earning roughly 10 million plays and 2.6 million likes in one week (shown below, left). On December 31st, 2022, TikToker^[7] clydesstinkytoilet posted a more satirical iteration using Joe Biden imagery, gaining roughly 149,600 plays and 33,400 likes in three days (shown below, right).

Over the course of 17 days, the TikTok^[5] sound amassed over 39,600 videos.