The People Behind The 'Eye Of Rah' Meme: Jeremiah Springfield, Rashad Bowens And Twitter's Scribbles Discuss The Brainrot Meme's Evolution

Twenty-six-year-old Rashad Bowens always wanted to become a meme, so earlier this week when a bunch of people entered his comment sections spamming, "Eye of Rah!" with his face as their profile pictures, he welcomed it as a good omen.

"I was happy," he said on an exclusive call with Know Your Meme this week, shortly after an edited image of him with one eye went viral on the brainrotted sides of Instagram and TikTok. "This all came out of the blue but I feel like it's an eye-opener."

This week, we spoke to the many actors involved in the viral Eye of Rah meme's evolution, revealing a domino effect of impulsive photoshopping and hair dying that led to (arguably) the first major meme of 2025. But the journey started many months ago when a series of one-legged edits hit the web.

Somehow, the trend skipped the arms and went straight for the eyes, leaving us here, trying to explain it all.

If you haven't seen it yet, it's a crudely edited photo of a man with one eye in the middle of his forehead and a single red dread poking out of his skull. To describe it to his friends and family, Rashad Bowens simply says, "I'm a cyclops."

(Rashad Bowens in the Eye of Rah meme.)

He believes it's funny because, well, it is, at least for many Zoomers and other internet users. When combined with other videos that seemingly make no sense, like Chopped Chin or I Bought a Property a Property in Egypt, the visual concoction is purportedly stronger than any lobotomy ever conducted.

@gadgetbruv follow me guys🥹🥹#eyeofrah #choppedchin #iboughtapropertyinegypt #brainrot #brainrotmeme #xy #relatablecontent ♬ original sound – ㅤgadgetbruv✝️📱

(A brainrot video that combines the I Bought a Property a Property in Egypt, Eye of Rah and Chopped Chin memes.)

Bowens is a boxer, and although he's dedicated to the sport, he might be more dedicated to the social media grind. He told us he's been posting reaction videos since 2013, but many of those original channels have been deleted or shadowbanned.

He gained viral attention when he switched up his hairdo earlier in the decade. "When COVID started," he said, "I dyed my hair red and people started saying, 'Hot Cheetos,' in my comment sections. So I always kept the hair red to get more views."

Bowens also changed up his reaction style around this time, becoming more blunt, raw and angry in his responses to the content popping up on his For You page. His iconic catchphrase, "Don't ever let me see this again," also spawned from this transformation.

That fateful dye job was arguably a bigger transformation for him than the all-seeing eye that later breached the surface of his face. His older reaction content, some of which is still on YouTube, stands as a testament to his more accurate self because, in real life, Bowens said he's far from his brash online persona. "I'm a chill low-key person but it do translate sometimes, like when I’m boxing."

(A reaction video from Rashad Bowens before Eye of Rah fame.)

Bowens truly primed himself for meme exploitation, using his eye-catching look and confident attitude to force his way into the algorithms of simple scrollers. In many ways, Bowens is thankful to the person who made the original edit that turned him into a monster. They've actually become close.

"I'm talking daily with him," said Jeremiah Springfield, the creator of the Eye of Rah meme, on a call with us this week. It's funny to imagine the kid behind the account interacting with the men he adds and subtracts limbs from.

@frightenedsheep25937582 is his username on both Instagram and TikTok. His edits highlight the casual "fit pics" posted by male influencers online, only to devolve them through a series of CapCut effects and filters. The strike of a gong and a fire explosion ring in a new version of the man shown.

"I think they make people laugh," he said, trying to explain the joke. "I had to laugh when I made a few of them."

@frightenedsheep25937582 #CapCut #fyp ♬ original sound – Jeremiah Springfield

(An edit posted by Jeremiah Springfield on TikTok.)

Springfield's posting career started with a few Hood Irony pages over the years, but his experience of making original content only started with the one-leg edits — and that wasn't even that long ago. He shared his first video online last June.

He was directly inspired by an image on Twitter / X of a guy named @malachiplayaaa who's seen wearing blue skinny jeans, an Osaivier shirt and flashing a wad of $100 —
no, wait … $5 bills.
The edit shows the man with one leg extending from the center of his torso, making him look like a sign or a tennis racket.

(The original one-leg photoshop. – Source)

"I saw the picture and I thought it was funny," he said, "but I felt like there had to be something to build up on that, like a video. Just a plain picture is cool but it's not as entertaining as a video."

An easy description of Springfield's videos is "entertaining." His videos move and shake the uniped characters as if they were toys. Some bounce like a basketball, others jump like a frog, and in the Eye of Rah meme, some turn alien and otherworldly, inviting a continuation of lore outside of Springfield's control.

Springfield's editing software of choice, CapCut, came out of convenience rather than premeditation. He told us he couldn't give it up because the app's flame explosion effect is now tied to his videos. It's become iconic.

But his choice, even if it's not strategic, alludes to a shift in the impulse of Hood Lobotomy video creators. The impulse used to be to make a video as pixelated and moldy as possible to portray low-browness.

But with the accessibility of the polished, often 1080p CapCut editor –
directly embedded into TikTok's interface –
that instinct has shifted. New brainrot edits now target a different lowest common denominator that subverts how we view the bottom of the "video quality" barrel.

@frightenedsheep25937582 #CapCut #fyp ♬ original sound – Jeremiah Springfield

(An edit posted by Jeremiah Springfield on TikTok.)

Although Jeremiah Springfield ran with the one-leg bit, someone walked before him. That's Twitter user @CatEnjoyer, also known as Scribbles. He and his friends were messing around in a Discord server one day when Scribbles, the group's "Photoshop guy," was given a task. @malachiplayaaa's fit pic was dropped in the channel and someone said, "Make his legs 1×1 PLEASE."

Even though Scribbles made it, he decided to post a different OC on Twitter first. In it, the man has no legs. Instead, he's depicted as a rocket ship blasting off. "He looks proud," Scribbles said during a call with us this week. Details like the lens flare really show the craftsmanship.

(The rocket ship photoshop. – Source)

A month later, Jeremiah Springfield would start his social media campaign, mutating the inside joke from Scribbles' Discord server. The people in it, like Twitter's @sugarsmorecake and @blephin_, apparently have a certain affinity for Atlanta fashion.

The joke about the "Baggiest jeans in Atlanta" holds a lot of weight in the friend group. Images in which men wearing Ksubis are given less than possible BMI from the waist down are commonly shared among them, somewhat falling into the lineage of Hood Cryptid edits.

"We were just making stupid things like this and then saw another guy with skinny legs and did something else," Scribbles said.

(A "baggiest jeans in Atlanta" meme provided by Scribbles.)

When speaking with Jeremiah Springfield, he also had thoughts on Atlanta fashion and the big shirt, skinny jeans lifestyle. "The fits are alright. I wouldn't wear them myself but I find them iconic. I just find them hilarious because the legs look very skinny, just balancing on one leg."

Scribbles also does not wear skinny jeans and admitted, "I'm like a sheep, I have a lot of baggy jeans."

(The unedited photo of @malachiplayaaa. – Source)

When asked what his one-leg edit achieved, Scribbles said, "Honestly nothing. I don't think it’s contributing anything to society. Maybe it's a detriment. It's just photoshopping someone to look like a ridiculous character. That's been a thing for a long time, just messing around in Photoshop."

Scribbles has been at the center of other viral Photoshop trends too, like when edits of lolcow rapper Lilmar laid up in a hospital bed were going viral two years ago, he was throwing his hat in the ring with one that read, "Mar you cyclops AF," foreshadowing the eventual Eye of Rah trend.

"Somehow we simultaneously came to this cyclops edit," he said after noticing this. According to Scribbles, these ideas manifest after "like a 5G brainwave" or something rockets through your head.

(The "Mar you cyclops AF" meme. – Source)

Rashad Bowens, of Eye of Rah meme fame, always knew his look was iconic. It's what drove his steady rise, fully popping off this week. His exuberant appearance offered itself to the algorithm and memetic evolution, just like the men posting their fit pics on Instagram who've become a subject of awe for Jeremiah Springfield, Scribbles' friend group and the internet at large.

The Eye of Rah trend truly shows how anything can happen with your image after you post it online. Is the goal of wearing designer clothes, spreading money and posing against a wall to go viral? Most likely, but the aftermath of that engagement can lead to the strange.

"I love it," Bowens said. "I want to bring positivity to this world. This is what I always wanted. I was never really trying to work for real. Just to get there, now I feel like it's finally here. I never felt like I was normal. I always wanted to be something in life."

(An Eye of Rah video reposted by Rashad Bowens.)

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You can follow Rashad Bowens on Instagram at @eyeofrahofficial and on TikTok at @eyeofrahoffical. You can also follow Jeremiah Springfield on Instagram at @frightenedsheep25937582 and on TikTok at @frightenedsheep25937582. Lastly, you can find Scribbles on Twitter at @CatEnjoyer.

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