Woman Lighting a Cigarette and Exploding

Submission 8,129

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

About

Woman Lighting a Cigarette and Exploding is a reaction meme using a scene from the British soap opera EastEnders in which the character May "Mad May" Wright (portrayed by Amanda Drew), shaking and distraught, kills herself by lighting up a cigarette in a room filled with gas. Starting in 2023, the clip has been used as a video and GIF caption format, particularly in memes about stressful situations.

Origin

On June 18th, 2008, episodes 3597-3598 of the British soap opera EastEnders premiered on BBC One.^[1] In the episode, the character May "Mad May" Wright (Amanda Drew) kills herself by turning on a gas stove and lighting a cigarette after the room fills with gas, causing an explosion (scene shown below).

Spread

The clip has been used as a caption meme on social media since at least November 2023. On November 14th, 2023, the X^[2] account @TheMemesArchive archived the clip of Mad May lighting up a cigarette and causing an explosion, which received over 40 reposts and 320 likes in nine months.

On July 26th, 2024, the X^[3] account @allreactionvids archived the clip (shown below), with the upload gaining over 680 reposts and 4,700 likes in one month.

On November 19th, 2023, X^[4] user @brockomole posted one of the earliest found viral memes based on the format, pairing it with a caption about discovering that their work crush was married. The post (shown below) received over 2,100 reposts and 37,000 likes in nine months.

The format achieved more prominence in July and August 2024 when multiple video caption memes based on it were circulated. For example, on August 25th, 2024, X^[5] user @DlRTYSHlRT made a post about the 2025 Oasis Reunion tour that garnered over 3,800 reposts and 17,000 likes in five days (shown below).