About

The Thing That Killed refers to a phrasal template popularized on Twitter in winter 2021. The template sets up an exaggerated reaction to an innocuous suggestion by pointing out a technically true fact about a historical death, i.e. "You want me to get in a car? The thing that killed Princess Diana?"

Origin

On November 30th, 2021, Twitter user @Senn_spud^[1] tweeted, "you want me to get in a car. The thing that killed Princess diana," gaining over 17,000 retweets and 152,000 likes in one week (shown below).

Spread

The phrasal template began spreading several days after @Senn_spud's tweet. On December 2nd, 2021, Twitter user @robhim2day^[2] posted, "you want me to use the oven. the thing that killed sylvia plath," gaining over 280 retweets and 1,400 likes in one week (shown below, left). On December 3rd, the Sparknotes Twitter account^[3] posted, "You want me to make friends? The thing that killed Julius Caesar?," gaining over 6,700 retweets and 39,000 likes in one week (shown below, right).

Other high engagement examples include a December 6th tweet by @TheHyyype^[4] that read, "you want me to drink water. the thing that killed jack in titanic," gaining over 46,000 retweets and 332,000 likes in two days (shown below, left). That same day, @jzux^[5] tweeted, "you want me to go to a dinner party. the thing that killed jesus," gaining over 29,000 retweets and 255,000 likes in two days (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References