Where Is The 'Wolf Ripping Shirt' Meme From And How Did It Become A Meme? The Werewolf Ripping Shirt Meme Explained

Illustrations of wolves staring lonely or depressed at night have grown popular in the early 2020s, becoming an unofficial internet mascot, replacing some of the wholesome cat and dog memes. One of the many popular memes depicting the animal in a moody manner is the Wolf Ripping Shirt, which has been featured in several sigma image macro jokes and Alpha Male content.

The wolf comes from the same series as the classic Sitting Wolf meme and we'll explain how Generation Z turned the illustration into the viral Werewolf Ripping Shirt meme.

Where Is The 'Wolf Ripping Shirt' Meme From?

Gen Z's decided to embrace the "lone wolf" aesthetics going into the early 2020s, a symptom that might be related to the global pandemic that forced everyone to quarantine for months. That lonely feeling inspired X user @de4dname in July 2022 to share a drawing of a wolfman on his knees ripping his shirt in half while howling or screaming at a full moon as a reaction to express how they felt while listening to "Clarity" by Zedd.

How Did The 'Wolf Ripping Shirt' Meme Went Viral?

The Wolf Ripping Shirt image began to spread shortly after the tweet went viral in July 2022, being used mainly as a reaction image but also as part of "Alpha Werewolf" memes, like the one posted by TikTok user @bepiz0 in January 2024, who added the illustration (seen below, left) of the werewolf in a lyric video of Flyleaf's "I’m So Sick" song. In September 2023, TikTok user @pancology_ shared a similar video, this time pairing with the "Why do good girls like bad guys?" meme (seen below, right).

The Werewolf Ripping Shirt also inspired many captions memes across X and Instagram, like the one posted by the Instagram meme page new.incognito.tab in December 2022, who uploaded a recaptioned version of @XEXEEZY's tweet (shown below, left). In November 2022, Tumblr user djorkus posted a version of the meme with the caption "I love effeminate men" (below, right).

For the full history of Wolf Ripping Shirt, be sure to check out Know Your Meme's encyclopedia entry for more information.