What If It Was All Just a Dream?

Submission 42,845

About

What If It Was All Just a Dream? is a meme genre and a catchphrase that suggests an idea of alternative reality in which a popular internet phenomenon, such as a well-known meme or a popular influencer, has never existed. The memes often feature the background of the meme with the primary meme component erased, or show an edited image in which zero search results found for that meme.

Origin

The earliest known meme featuring the caption "What if it was all just a dream?" was posted by Redditor^[1] NoSayingHeckPlease on January 10th, 2020, and suggested the idea that Big Chungus never went viral (shown below). The post received over 310 upvotes in /r/okbuddyretard in five months.

Spread

The format did not see viral spread until January 23rd, 2020, when Twitter^[2] user @VOYAGERsongs posted a collection of four meme backgrounds (You Know I Had to Do It to Em, Woman Yelling at a Cat, Joker Stairs and Hey What's Up Guys, It's Scarce Here) with the primary subjects of the meme absent, writing "what if.. it was all… just a dream?" (shown below). The post received over 310 retweets and 790 likes in five months.

On the same day, iFunny^[3] user insertrave posted a screenshot of @VOYAGERsongs' post, gaining over 56,500 smiles in five months. While several more memes were posted on iFunny^[4] (example shown below, left) and in /r/okbuddyretard^[5] in the following month, the format did not see notable further spread until on February 23rd, Twitter^[6] user @tnt2014 reposted an Ohio vs. the World meme which received over 790 retweets and 4,200 likes (shown below) and multiple reposts^[7]^[8] in the following days.

The meme reached its viral point in late May 2020, when multiple images and video edits exploring an idea of alternative reality in which a certain meme or person did not exist were posted on Twitter, Instagram and other online platforms. For example, on May 24th, Instagram^[9] user publicbenis posted a DOOR STUCK version which received over 4,400 likes in two weeks (shown below, left). On May 31st, Twitter^[10] user @Tf2Cursed posted a meme about Team Fortress 2 that gained 160 retweets and 1,100 likes (shown below, right).

Something Is Missing

Something Is Missing is a Twitter gimmick account that posts famous memes with their key component edited out, similar to What If It All Was Just a Dream? meme format. The page gained viral popularity in June 2021.

But If You Close Your Eyes

But If You Close Your Eyes are the lyrics of the chorus of the 2013 song "Pompeii" by English band Bastille. The song's chorus became a meme in August 2020 after being used in videos of countries and regions disappearing from maps.

You're Finally Awake

You're Finally Awake is an image macro series featuring photographs of people and animals looking at the camera, captioned with messages written as if the reader suddenly regained consciousness and discovered that the recent years or even their entire life were a product of their imagination. The format inherits its snowclone caption from Skyrim's Toddroll meme, also sharing strong similarities with What If It All Was Just a Dream? format.