This How You Cut a Xan Cake

Submission 23,333

Part of a series on Lil Pump. [View Related Entries]

About

How to Cut a Xan Cake, also known as This How You Cut a Xan Cake or Lil Pump Cutting a Xan Cake, refers to a viral video of rapper Lil Pump cutting a cake shaped like a Xanax bar ("xan") and telling his friend Troy to "shut your bitch ass up" for telling him to cut "all the way down." Originally posted to Instagram in 2017, the video first became a meme on TikTok in 2020. In 2023, meme creators on TikTok started making AI voice parodies with the video, inserting characters into the phrasal templates X Shows How to Cut a Xan Cake and X Teaches How to Cut a Xan Cake.

Origin

On June 17th, 2017,^[1] Lil Pump posted a video to Instagram (since deleted) in which he was celebrating 1 million followers by cutting and eating a xan cake. The video was reposted by the YouTube^[2] channel Hip Hop Parallel on June 17th, gaining roughly 66,700 views and 2,100 likes in six years (shown below).

This how you cut a xan cake. Uh!
Cut all the way down.
Shut yo bitch ass up Troy.
All the way down!
Shut yo bitch ass up. Troy, you's a bitch. Don't tell me what to do, nigga [laugh].

Spread

In March 2020, a series of abstract duets surfaced on TikTok in which people reenacted the characters and items involved in Lil Pump's video. Many of the original videos that started the chain of duets have since been deleted, however, remnants of the trend's lineage still exist on TikTok^[3]^[4] (shown below).

On March 25th, 2020, TikToker^[5] @mk7evan4 reposted the original video, gaining over 4 million plays and 295,400 likes in three years. On June 6th, 2021, TikToker^[6] @milfqueef69 posted a lower quality version with "poor troy" written, gaining roughly 9.3 million plays and 797,700 likes in two years (shown below, left). The video's sound^[7] then gained usage, evident in a post shared by TikToker^[8] @fadedfromjay on June 29th, 2021, receiving roughly 4.1 million plays and 912,700 likes in two years (shown below, right).

In January 2023, usage of @milfqueef69's sound^[7] resurfaced in viral TikToks.^[9]^[10] Going into 2023, the "xan cake" video continued to be referenced in memes, such as in a Huey Crying meme posted by TikToker^[11] @troy12365 on July 28th, 2023, which received roughly 11,200 plays in one month.

AI Voice Parodies

Due to the video's 2023 resurgence, a series of AI-generated voice parodies surfaced on TikTok in August 2023. The first known parodies were uploaded on August 20th, 2023, by TikTokers^[12]^[13] @lilbuster7 and @fakeknifepart2. @lilbuster7's TikTok^[12] referenced Heavy from TF2, gaining roughly 570,700 plays and 81,600 likes in five days (since deleted). @fakeknifepart2's TikTok^[13] referenced Ghetto Smosh, gaining roughly 23,500 plays and 410 likes in five days (shown below).