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What Is The 'What They're Doing Is Very Smart But Also Very Dangerous' Meme? The Cute Animals 'JuggTok' Trend Explained
A new meme showing cute animals going about their daily habits has gone viral on TikTok, centering on the catchphrase, "What They're Doing Is Very Smart But Also Very Dangerous."
The "nothing burger" of a phrase is just as redundant and goofy as the ironic memes using it. Meme creators are replacing the words, jumbling them around and providing new contexts in this developing phrasal template.
But what does this phrase mean? Where did the meme come from and why is it popular? Let's explain.
Where Did The 'What They're Doing Is Very Smart But Also Very Dangerous' Meme Come From?
The first meme to use the phrase was posted a week ago by a TikToker named @sanchez321.2. It showed penguins waddling and then jumping off a glacier into the water below.
The base video was stretched. It had been condensed horizontally. Also, the TikTok's sound was a loud hip-hop beat belonging to the song, "SaddestStory" by 2slimey. The track's overblown 808s provided an odd backing to the otherwise wholesome context.
The video's caption attested that what the penguins were doing was "very smart" but also "very dangerous." The content seemed to parody nature documentaries with a modern meme twist.
@sanchez321.2 #fyp #slimetok #penguins #fypシ ♬ SaddestStory – 2slimey
What Is The 'What They’re Doing Is Very Smart But Also Very Dangerous' Phrasal Template And Copypasta?
The caption of the original video has since been used by others. It's taken new forms and adopted different wordings, like many phrasal templates before it. Some might consider the original text a copypasta. Here it is in full:
See this X. I knew this was going to happen. What they're doing is very smart. But also very dangerous.
Why Is This Meme Popular On TikTok?
The "What They're Doing Is Very Smart But Also Very Dangerous" meme aesthetically and thematically stems from the JuggTok genre of memes, which are characterized by stretched background videos, loud rap beats and walls of text, commonly packed with nonsensical "slang overload."
This particular trend mixes JuggTok with so-called "Soft Irony," a genre of Papyrus font memes from last year that focused on image macros of cute animals, often paired with AAVE slang used in rap music.
This history that made the current concoction sheds light on why the meme is so popular. Cute animals, underground rap and irony-poisoned captions are still all the rave, taking a new form here.
@lioul000 no tags
@hystxric don't recreate this guys they know what they're doing #hystxric #bears #bearsfighting #dangerous #lxstk1 ♬ SaddestStory – 2slimey
For the full history of What They’re Doing Is Very Smart but Also Very Dangerous, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's entry for even more information.
