When Your Circle Small But All Y'all Crazy

Submission 10,106

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

About

When Your Circle Small But All Y'all Crazy refers to a catchphrase and snowclone trend that most often reads, "When Your Circle Small But Y'all Crazy," however, meme creators replace the latter half of the phrase with a different adjective or action. It's often paired with an image macro to represent the friend group. Additionally, the idea of keeping a small circle is related to Hustle Culture Memes. The phrase was first coined on Instagram in 2015 but was used most on Twitter in late 2020.

Origin

In early June 2015, Instagram^[1] page therealvillypone posted a meme that captioned a painting of Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers playing poker with, "When Your Circle Small But Y'all Crazy" (shown below).

However, therealvillypone has since deleted the post. The first, still accessible utterance of the phrase was posted on June 9th, 2015, by Twitter^[2] user Ello_trippy whose tweet read, "When your circle small but y'all crazy 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂." It earned no likes over seven years (shown below).

The first known Instagram repost was made on June 26th, 2015 by Instagram^[3] page electricity who earned over 220 likes in seven years. In the caption of their post, they tagged therealvillypone. Additionally, therealvillypone's watermark is visible in the meme.

Spread

Therealvillypone's meme was reposted to Facebook ^[4] on January 6th, 2018 by the page Gangsters, Pimps & Hustlers who earned roughly 7,200 reactions over the course of four years. A year and a half later, on September 21st, 2019, Facebook^[5] page No Snitches allowed Any More posted a new version of the template, replacing the center photo with one of Heath Ledger's Joker, Jared Leto's Joker and Jack Nicholson's Joker all sitting at a table. The meme received only 12 reactions despite being the first known re-mix (shown below).

On July 23rd, 2020, Twitter^[6] user greenIight captioned four images with the catchphrase, receiving roughly 2,100 likes in two years (shown below, left). The tweet inspired more Twitter users to use the phrase going into the remainder of 2020. For instance, on December 11th, 2020, Twitter^[7] user paperssil tweeted a photo of multiple dolls from the Chucky franchise with the catchphrase, earning roughly 137,900 likes in a year and a half (shown below, right).

The aforementioned tweet was reposted to multiple platforms, further spreading the meme. For instance, it was reposted by Facebook^[8] page Icemikeloveasia on December 12th, 2020, where it earned roughly 21,000 reactions in a year and a half.

More iterations of the meme surfaced across social media going into 2021 and 2022, whereby 2022, the catchphrase had become so well-known that it became a snowclone. For instance, on April 20th, 2022, Instagram^[9] page quirkedup_paulyshawty posted a meme that replace the latter half of the phrase with, "And Unaware Ricky Was Getting Mauled." Over the course of one day, the post received roughly 3,000 likes (shown below).