What's Gibby Thinking About?

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Part of a series on iCarly. [View Related Entries]

About

What's Gibby Thinking About? is a video remix series based on a sketch from the American telelivision comedy series iCarly. The series opens with a jingle before revealing that Gibby is thinking about something absurd. Online, people replace what he is thinking about with various other videos.

Origin

On September 8th, 2007, iCarly premiered in the United States.^[1] The earliest available upload of the sketch "What's Gibby Thinking About," a web-based short,^[2] was uploaded on June 22nd, 2009 by YouTuber TheReallmjom. The post received more than 50,000 views in less than 10 years (shown below, left).

On September 14th, 2012, YouTuber iCarlyFanUK1234 uploaded a later installment of the segment that features the introduction most commonly used in the meme. The post received more than 260,000 views in six years (shown below, right).

Spread

On September 12th, 2015, YouTuber Hawkey Padz posted a video entitled "WHAT'S GIBBY THINKING ABOUT?!?! (Black Kid Screaming)," which features a video of a child screaming following the "Gibby" introduction. The post received more than 22,000 views in three years (shown below).

On February 11th, 2016, YouTuber Spooky Ghost posted a compilation of remixes. The post received more than 88,000 views in two years (shown below, left).

The following year, on November 5th, YouTuber James Onecell posted a compilation of variation that were uploaded to the website Vine. The post received more than 180,000 views in one year.

TikTok Revival

On November 20th, 2020, haveyouseenmyolives uploaded a video to TikTok ^[3] that begins with the "What's Gibby Thinking About?" title card followed by a section of George Michael's song "Careless Whisper" garnering over 4.4 million views in just under 2 months (shown below).

By early December of 2020, a trend set to the sound began to take off, where TikTokers would make videos using on-screen text effects to spell out, "What's [name] Thinking About?" set to the tune of the song, followed by a scene representing what they're thinking about as "Careless Whisper" plays. It's unknown who started the trend. On December 4th, the.jumpinghamster uploaded a video^[4] following the trend, garnering over 4.1 million views in just over a month (shown below, left). On December 8th, Wiz Khalifa uploaded a video following the trend to TikTok,^[5] gaining over 8.8 million views in a month (shown below, right).

As of January 8th, 2021, videos under the hashtag #thinkingabout have achieved over 4.5 billion total views. The original sound^[6] associated with the trend has been used in over 608,000 viedeos.