To Get This, I Had to Survive This

Submission 2,751

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

About

To Get This, I Had to Survive This is an art trend on X / Twitter in which artists share a piece of artwork that showcases their current talents alongside an older artwork that shows lesser skill or represents an artistic phase they went through to showcase their progress, placing the former under the catchphrase "to get to this" and the latter under the caption "I had to survive this." The trend was popularized in January 2024 and is largely participated in through quote-reposts.

Origin

On January 23rd, 2024, Ukrainian X^[1] user @faux_soul posted two pieces of artwork under the caption, "in order to receive this, one had to somehow experience this," placing a better piece of artwork under "in order to receive this" and a less skillful piece under "one had to somehow experience this," garnering over 370 likes in a week (shown below). The poster wrote in a comment, "In short, if you are drawing now and only a squiggle comes out – don't worry, because with each drawing the squiggle will be smaller and smaller." This is the earliest known version of the meme.

Spread

The trend became increasingly popularized over the following days as X users quote-reposted versions of the post, often stemming from the original by @faux_soul. On January 25th, 2024, X^[2] user @helgafate221 posted an example that gained over 1,100 likes in a week (shown below, left).On January 30th, X^[3] user @TeachiiALT posted a version that gained over 22,000 likes in three days (shown below, right).

On February 1st, Chris-Chan notably participated in the trend through their X^[4] account, @CPU_CWCSonichu, garnering over 700 likes in under a day (shown below).