The Part Where Ariel Says X

About

The Part Where Ariel Says X is a phrasal template meme originating in the YouTube comment section of the trailer for Disney's 2023 remake of The Little Mermaid. The memetic phrase is a reference to the memes "It's Morbin' Time" and "Stand Back, I Am Beginning to Morb" from the 2022 film Morbius where users act as if such humorous quotes are actually said in the movie. Meme creators posting the snowclone "the part where Ariel says X" typically attribute dialogue or actions to Ariel that are not actually depicted in the trailer or film, often referencing quotes and events from other popular media. "It's Mermin' Time" and "It's Mermaidin' Time" are two prominent examples of the meme's punchline.

Origin

The original instance of the "Part Where Ariel Says X" meme comes from the comments section of the YouTube video for the first trailer of The Little Mermaid (2023), which was uploaded by Disney on September 9th, 2022 (shown below).^[1]

While many early comments about the trailer revolved around the casting controversy of the film that emerged during its promotion, the earliest usage of a joke like the snowclone in the comments section appears to have been posted by a YouTube user named Judah at on September 9th, 2022, less than four hours after the video was posted. This earliest known example received almost 680 likes in nine days (seen below).^[2]

Within two hours, many of the comments on the video were variations of the snowclone meme, swapping in references to different kinds of media. After nine days, over a quarter of a million comments were present on the original YouTube video, many of them posts of the "Part Where Ariel Says X" joke.

Spread

As the comments section filled up following the trailer on September 9th, 2022, people on other corners of the internet began to notice the meme as it spread outside YouTube. On September 10th, the same day as the trailer, a Reddit /r/outoftheloop post asked about the new snowclone and received over 100 replies over the course of nine days.^[4] Like in the comments themselves, an explicit link between the memery around the film Morbius and the "It's Morbin Time" meme observed in May 2022 was mentioned as an answer to why the jokes were so prevalent.

The phrases "It's Mermin' Time" or "It's Mermaidin' Time" (in reference to "It's Morbin' Time") also became associated with the snowclone meme throughout the following weeks, as many jokingly attributed the line to Ariel in the trailer. Many commenters posted about "mermin" or "mermaidin" time, including YouTuber Lord (seen below), who earned over 370 likes in a few hours on September 19th, 2022, for their comment.^[5] In the replies section of the Lord YouTube comment, another meme reference is also seen to memes around the film Don't Worry Darling and comments made by star Harry Styles while promoting it.

Various Examples

External References