Why Is 'Ian Hawke' From Alvin and the Chipmunks Going Viral On TikTok? The 'Ian Hawke Facts' Meme Explained

TikTokers are creating a new version of the classic Chuck Norris facts meme, this time centering around Ian Hawke, a character played by actor David Cross in the Alvin and the Chipmunks live-action film series.

For internet newcomers, Chuck Norris is considered one of the internet's first mainstream meme kingmakers. The action movie star from the 1980s has been memed since 2015 in a series of 'made-up facts' bearing absurd hyperbolic claims about his toughness, attitude, sophistication, and masculinity.

He even talked about the memes in an interview in October 2012, saying his favorite "Chuck Norris Fact" was "They once tried to carve Chuck Norris' face into Mount Rushmore, but the granite wasn't hard enough for his beard" (full interview below).

But what does Norris's meme have to do with the new surge of Ian Hawke memes on TikTok? Let's explain!

Who Is 'Ian Hawke?'

Ian Hawke is a character played by actor David Cross in the 2007 live-action Alvin and the Chipmunks film (trailer below). He is the movie's main antagonist, acting as an executive at JETT Records trying to sabotage the success of the singing chipmunks.

How Did 'Ian Hawke' Became A Meme?

It took a while for Ian Hawke to become a viral meme on the internet, but non-viral posts about the character started to surface in the late 2010s on websites like Twitter / X. In 2019, Know Your Meme user IanHawkeFan1 posted several Ian Hawke photoshops with unmarked origins (examples shown below).

The villain got viral attention going into the early 2020s, especially on Reddit, where a deleted user posted an image of Ian Hawke to /r/OkBuddyPersona accompanied by the caption "damb rat, I'll sue" (shown below, left). On December 19th, 2023, X user @slvppy posted a tweet, reading, "this mf was really the suge knight of the chipmunks 😭" (shown below, right).

What Did 'Ian Hawke' Do To Go Viral On TikTok?

According to Ian Hawke's new fans on TikTok, he is capable of many god-like things, like being the creator of the Amazon rainforest after planting a seed on the ground millions of years ago (shown below, left) as @mewing4fun revealed, or creating the concept of "happiness" by just smiling (shown below, right), as @5stepstohappiness0 shows.

Jokes aside, in April 2024, a slideshow trend emerged using Ian Hawke and the song "The Hanging Tree" from the Hunger Games film series, treating the character in a a Chuck Norris Facts meme fashion. Ian Hawke is treated like a superior character, similar to powerscaling edits. Currently, the first discovered Ian Hawke slideshow to follow the format was posted by TikToker^[12] @ianhawkesigma on April 20th, 2024, gaining over 6.8 million plays and 492,800 likes in six days (photos shown below).

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