You're Born Alone And You Die Alone

Submission 8,430

Part of a series on Mad Men. [View Related Entries]

About

You're Born Alone And You Die Alone, continued, And This World Just Drops A Bunch Of Rules On Top Of You is a partial quote spoken by Don Draper in the first season of Mad Men. The scene was uploaded to TikTok in June 2021 and went viral as an original sound in lip dub and trending videos, inspiring over 800,000 uses in a year.

Origin

On June 8th, 2008, the first episode of Mad Men^[1] aired on television. In one scene, Don Draper talks about love and how it was "invented by guys like me to sell nylons." During the speech, he says, "You're born alone and you die alone and this world just drops a bunch of rules on top of you to make you forget those facts, but I never forget." On November 10th, 2010, the clip was uploaded to YouTube^[2] titled "Don Draper's best quote," gaining over a million views in 12 years (shown below).

The reason you haven't felt it is because it doesn't exist. What you call love was invented by guys like me, to sell nylons. You're born alone and you die alone and this world just drops a bunch of rules on top of you to make you forget those facts. But I never forget. I'm living like there's no tomorrow, because there isn't one.

Spread

On June 19th, 2021, TikToker^[3] @millionairessteps posted a subtitled version of the clip, gaining over 7.6 million views in a year (shown below).

The video's original sound went viral over the course of the year, seeing increased use in 2022. The sound is often used in skits. For example, on March 20th, 2022, TikToker^[4] @user.5594283 posted a skit using the quote to represent a "pick me boy," gaining over 12.6 million views in three months (shown below, left). On April 12th, TikToker^[5] @sethmelrose posted a skit using the voice to represent "Jaden Smith," gaining over 5 million views in two months (shown below, right).

The sound is also used in videos with a filter that places a random number over the user's head which is supposed to represent the age something significant happened to you (examples shown below).^[6]^[7]