We Live. We Love. We Lie.

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Part of a series on Smurf Cat / Шайлушай. [View Related Entries]

Featured Episode

About

We Live. We Love. We Lie. refers to lyrics from the EDM song "The Spectre" by Alan Walker which became a meme in September 2023 due to the viral Smurf Cat meme, also known in Russian as "Шайлушай," on TikTok. Because the Smurf Cat meme used the song, other food-animal memes, as in, animals in the form of food, surfaced on the app, including the Strawberry Elephant and Pineapple Owl, among others. In turn, many of the food-animal hybrids were pinned against each other in powerscaling edits or revealed in photo slideshows, all using variations and remixes of the "We Live. We Love. We Lie" TikTok sound.

Origin

On September 15th, 2017, Alan Walker released his song "The Spectre" on streaming platforms.^[1] Also on September 15th, 2017, Alan Walker uploaded the song's music video to YouTube,^[2] where it gained over 1.1 billion views and 9.6 million likes in six years. At the song's 0:54-minute mark, the vocalist sings, "We live. We love. We lie," followed by the beat drop (shown below).

After its release, the song's original, predominant usage was in Roblox story videos, originally going viral via its usage in a video titled "ROBLOX GUEST STORY" uploaded by YouTuber^[3] Cryptize on January 11th, 2018, gaining roughly 131.9 million views and 1.2 million likes in five years (shown below).

Spread

Despite usage prior to 2023, the song became highly prevalent in memes starting in July 2023 on TikTok. On July 6th, 2023, TikToker^[4] @secret..identity1 posted an ironic Skibidi Toilet slideshow which had a currently unknown remix of "The Spectre" by Alan Walker as its sound. The slideshow gained roughly 96,700 likes in two months (recording shown below, left). In turn, many TikTokers used the TikTok sound,^[5] starting a drawing trend that manifested in slideshows going into August 2023 (TikTok^[6] example shown below, right).

On August 27th, 2023, TikToker^[7] @ghojam1 used the sound^[5] and created the first-known set of Шайлушай memes (later known as the "Smurf Cat") in a slideshow which received roughly 320,000 likes in 17 days (photos shown below).

Going into September 2023, the Smurf Cat meme started to gain increased virality, spreading usage of the song "The Spectre" and its remixes on TikTok and elsewhere. For instance, on September 7th, 2023, TikToker^[8] @aim.vsp posted a Smurf Cat edit with "WE LIVE WE LOVE WE LIE🗣️🔥" as the caption (using the speaking head emoji), gaining roughly 3.3 million plays and 426,000 likes in six days (shown below, left). On September 9th, 2023, TikToker^[9] @eathetrari posted a video, joking about, "Alan Walker seeing why his song is trending," gaining roughly 7 million plays and 1.2 million likes in four days (shown below, right).

During the same timeframe, various videos and slideshows surfaced on TikTok that added new "food animals" to the growing lore of the song. For instance, on September 7th, 2023, TikToker^[10] @xoxo.dragonmaid.xx posted a slideshow with "We Live. We Love. We Lie" that showed the Strawberry Elephant meme, gaining roughly 100,000 likes in six days (recording shown below, left). The slideshow inspired more, becoming increasingly viral (TikTok^[11] example shown below, right).

On September 9th, 2023, TikToker^[12] @diego_ftg posted a video with the Strawberry Elephant set to the song "On & On" by Cartoon, inspiring the meme's usage with the new song. Regardless, usage of "The Spectre" continued to trend with the "food animal" memes going into September 2023.