Wake Me Up Inside (Can't Wake Up)

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About

"Wake Me Up Inside" and "Can't Wake Up" are lyrics from the 2003 alternative rock song "Bring Me To Life" by Evanescence, which are associated with images of a calm-looking subject juxtaposed next to a picture of the same subject appearing distressed.

Origin

On April 22nd, 2003, the song "Bring Me to Life" by Evanescence was released.

On May 13th, 2013, Tumblr user maohshounen posted and edited version of a skeleton rocking chair^[1] (shown below, left) with a red filter and glowing eyes with the description "ah yes my throne" (shown below, right). The earliest example of the association between the image and the Evanescence lyrics was posted to 4chan's /v/ (video games) board on February 11th, 2014^[5].

Spread

On February 27th, 2014, an anonymous 4chan user posted a cropped screenshot of the skeleton images with the filenames "WAKE ME UP INSIDE.PNG" and "(CAN'T WAKE UP).PNG".

On December 19th, Tumblr user aoimine highlighted the images.^[6] On March 2nd, 2015, a photograph of a WWE professional wrestler Dean Ambrose juxtaposed next to a flipped and cropped version of the photograph with the caption "WAKE ME UP INSIDE" / "(CAN'T WAKE UP)" was posted to the imageboard 420chan.^[7]