Why Girls Hug Guys Over the Shoulders / Around the Neck

About

Why Girls Hug Guys Around the Neck or Wait Until Guys Find Out Why Girls Hug Them Over Their Shoulders refers to a series of memes, including TikTok videos, featuring captions like, “Wait until guys find out why we hug them around the neck.” It has been suggested online that the implied reason is to align the girls’ genitals with the man’s genitals, although alternate hypothesis’ have also been suggested, including that a hug around the neck forced the man to grab the woman's waist. Videos like this became popularized on TikTok in mid-2022 and continued to go viral over the following year, including through a screenshot of a TikTok using the caption.

Origin

In mid-2022, TikTokers popularized posting selfie videos using captions like, “Wait until guys find out why we hug them around the neck.” Although it’s unknown who first posted a video like this, one of the earliest examples was uploaded on April 7th, 2022 by TikToker^[4] @kvrieee, garnering over 2.5 million views in a year (shown below).

Spread

The trend spread across TikTok over the following months, inspiring several viral examples. On September 23rd, 2022, TikToker^[5] @itsjustselxo posted a version of the trend that gained over 12 million views in a year (shown below).

On July 4th, 2023, X^[1] user @everythingOOC posted a screenshot of a seemingly deleted TikToker using the caption, garnering over 188,000 likes in two months (shown below). The captured video may have originated the trend and dates back as early as November 14th, 2020 based on a reupload to TikTok.^[6]

On July 5th, Distractify^[2] published an article claiming the implied reason is to align the male and female’s genitals while hugging. On September 24th, a Redditor posted a screenshot of a 4chan user who posted the same video screenshot in October 2022, writing, “did we ever find out what she meant?” to /r/greentext,^[3] garnering over 10,000 upvotes in a week.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References