What Happened to Mister Shit?

Submission 4,772

Part of a series on Video Essay. [View Related Entries]

About

What Happened to Mister Shit? or What Happened to Mr. Shit? refers to a parody YouTube video thumbnail designed to satirize long and vapid YouTube video essays about influencer career decline and controversy. It was originally posted by Tumblr user ashyslashyy in early 2024, who captioned it, "why is half of youtube filled with 47 minute long videos that look like this?" The thumbnail shows a white guy smiling with his eyes censored and glitching silhouettes layered behind him. The meme spread across Twitter / X and Reddit (among other sites) in 2024. Many users agreed with the criticism, spawning the slang term Mister Shit Videos or Mr. Shit Videos to describe the genre of video essays being parodied.

Origin

On March 27th, 2024, Tumblr^[1] user ashyslashyy posted a fake YouTube thumbnail of a video called, "What happened to Mister Shit?" He captioned the image, "why is half of youtube filled with 47 minute long videos that look like this," and it received over 68,900 notes in four months (shown below).

Spread

On March 29th, 2024, Redditor^[2] Faenix_Wright shared a screenshot of the post to /r/tumblr, gaining over 18,000 upvotes in four months. The meme was also reposted to /r/CuratedTumblr^[3] on March 29th, gaining over 5,500 upvotes during the same timeframe.

On March 31st, Redditor^[4] ATN-Antronach shared a screenshot to /r/CuratedTumblr of a reply on the original Tumblr post, shared by user deadthingposting. Over four months, the post gained roughly 2,400 upvotes (shown below, left).

On April 1st, X^[5] user @mothcub_ tweeted a screenshot of the original Tumblr post, gaining over 85,000 likes in three months. The tweet received viral quotes and replies, like one quote shared by X^[6] user @MaxKriegerVG on April 1st, who said, "finally, the subconscious rebellion against longform youtube essays begins," gaining over 1,500 likes in three months (shown below, right).

During the same timeframe, the original meme gained viral reposts on Instagram.^[7]

On July 5th, 2024, X^[8] user @CalumDotExe tweeted the original screenshot, writing, "This post is now ingrained so deeply in my mind that I just call this type of content 'Mister Shit videos,'" earning over 110,000 likes in three days (shown below).