Wannabe

Submission 21,406

About

If You Wannabe My Lover refers to a series of memes based on the song "Wannabe" by the musical group Spice Girls, generally mocking the lyrics to the song.

Origin

On July 8th, 1996, the song "Wannabe" by Spice Girls was released (video below).^[1] Within 22 years, the song sold more than 2.9 million copies in the United States.

Spread

One of the earliest remixes of the song was posted on YouTube. On April 7th, 2007, YouTuber MetalSonicGT set a cover of the song to clips of Dragon Ball. The post received more than 43,000 views in 11 years.

Two days later, YouTuber moymoypalaboy posted a lip-sync video of the song. The post received more than 22 million views in 11 years.

On December 21st, 2017, Instagram ^[2] user @feminstvoice posted a promotional image of the Spice Girls holding inflatable globes underneath the phrase "if you wannabe my lover you gotta get" and above each respective Spice Girl is an issue of importance within within feminist ideology. The post received more than 15,000 likes in less than one year (shown below, left).

On October 12th, 2018, the official Bumble Instagram^[3] account posted a variation of the image, replacing the globes with the lyrics to the song. However, following the "you gotta," the lyric is replaced with "at least text me, damn." The post received more than 31,000 likes in less than one week (shown below, center).

Following the post, the image became one of the dominant formats for the meme. For example, on October 16th, Redditor ^[4] ratdaddy225 posted a version featuring the Seize the Means of Production meme in /r/MemeEconomy subreddit. The post received more than 1,700 points (96% upvoted) and 280 comments in two days.