The Weekly Meme Roundup: Chopped Chin, Ninja Locked In, Vexbolts Mass Unfollowing And More

It's 2025, and that means a whole new year of brain-rotting memes and trends for us to gawk at. Considering what 2024 gave us, it's understandable to be either very excited or very nervous about that fact.

This week gave us a small glimpse into what might come of the new year, including an exploding Cybertruck, a mass unfollowing event, yet another rendition of the Ninja Low Taper Fade and a hard-to-describe new meme character known as "Chopped Chin."

Here are five of the biggest memes from this past week that you should pay attention to.

Chopped Chin

It's not often that a meme relegated almost entirely to a single platform goes as viral as Chopped Chin. That's especially true when the platform in question is Instagram Reels, which has previously been seen by many as a repository for week-old TikTok memes.

Chopped Chin is a very ironic meme derived entirely from a video of former WNBA player Renee Montgomery and her cousin dancing courtside at an Atlanta Dream game.

The video, which was originally posted online in August 2023, suddenly became a big meme on Reels after Instagram user halal_man_2 started posting it over and over again with a different Tumblr-core quote slapped over it.

The account posted one example of the meme to the song "Bring Me Back (Enox Mantano Remix)" by Miles Away that did well and then just kept on posting. Soon enough, Reels users began getting flooded with the videos.

They awarded both the halal_man_2 account and the cousin in the video the nickname "chopped chin" due to the appearance of the cousin's chin and since then, have been making parody versions of the memes that have been taking over the app.

Examples

Sex With Robots In 2025

Back in 2015, futurologist Dr. Ian Pearson went viral for predicting that, by 2025, we'd be having sex with robots. Well, guess what year it is?

In the days leading up to 2025, social media users were reminded of this prediction and began posting memes about the impending "sex with robots day."

These memes have carried on into the new year, although some people seem a little disappointed that the prediction hasn't seemed to come true. Don't worry, though, Dr. Pearson still thinks there's a chance.

Recently, Know Your Meme had the opportunity to interview Dr. Pearson about the prediction. In the interview, he clarified that he predicted people would "start" having sex with robots in 2025, writing that the prediction would likely be more accurate by 2050.

Just 25 more years, people. Let's make sure we don't blow up the Earth by then.

Examples

Cybertruck Explosion

Last year refused to go out without a literal bang, but who would have guessed that that bang would come from a Cybertruck outside a Trump hotel in Las Vegas.

Quickly after news of the incident broke, social media users started busting out the memes, as they do with any potentially tragic event.

Before it was revealed that the Cybertruck was purposely blown up by an "intelligence manager with special forces experience," many got a laugh out of the fact that, based on the Cybertruck and Tesla's history of issues, the explosion could easily have been due to a manufacturing error.

The truth behind the matter is obviously much more grim and has predictably launched many conspiracy theorists into a frenzy. Thankfully, there were no reported deaths beyond the man who blew the Cybertruck up.

Whatever the details, social media users have continued to post memes about the explosion, perhaps giving Elon Musk yet another thing to lose his hair over.

Examples

NEW: Video shows Tesla Cybertruck explosion at the Trump tower in Tilted Towers. No word yet on the cause pic.twitter.com/6P2NWuFjqK

— sarah but❤️🖤💚but FESTIVE⛄️🎄🎁 (@supersonic16023) January 2, 2025

Vexbolts Mass Unfollowing

Vexbolts, one of the biggest brainrot influencers of all time, became the unexpected subject of a mass unfollowing troll campaign recently and somehow ended up coming out on top.

@vexbolts Vexbolts is getting left in 2024 @MrBeast 😭💀#vexbolts #lethimcook #december31st ♬ Ganger by Rroxket CYBER SPEED – cyberundergr0und

The whole thing started on a random day in December when TikTokers inexplicably turned on Vexbolts for having cringeworthy content. They began posting increasingly viral videos encouraging Vexbolts' followers to unfollow him on December 31st.

This resulted in tons of users following the creator with plans to unfollow him on the night of the 31st. But Vexbolts didn't stress.

Instead, he embraced the meme and started posting videos playing into the idea of being left in 2024. These videos got tens of millions of views each and paved the road to a massive live stream, which allegedly broke TikTok records.

Vexbolts reached a huge 8 million followers thanks to the campaign, but went down to around 3 million on judgment day, still netting him around 2 million followers at the end of the day. Not bad for a humble brainrot poster.

Examples

@a.j.befumo Bring Back @Vexbolts‼️ #vexbolts #song #dance #family #fun #bigjustice #boom @YeSquad @Screedi ♬ original sound – A.J. & Big Justice

@itscamillaara Just a suggestion… @Sophie Rain ♬ sequencia mobilizadora – DJZRX

@alexthecoolfish this is the last video on this meme 💔 #fyp #viral #memes #vexbolts #massunfollowing ♬ original sound – 1real

@vexbolts VEXBOLTS MASS REFOLLOWING JANUARY 5th 💀 HE DIDNT MAKE IT TO 2025 💔 #v#vexboltsd#december31stl#lethimcook ♬ original sound – Vexbolts

Locked In Ninja

TikTokers are refusing to let two of the biggest memes of 2024 stay in 2024, and they've combined them to hopefully give the formats the staying power they need. Those memes are Ninja's Low Taper Fade and the Locked in Alien.

@hepatitusba4 Locked in alien remix #hepatitusba4 ♬ original sound – HepaTitusBA4

At the end of December, TikToker @hepatitusba4 posted an impromptu remix of the song "Scissorhands," which is the backing track for the Locked in Alien meme, by singing about the "Low Taper Fade" meme over the instrumental.

To be more specific, he sang the lyrics of a Vexbolts brainrot song about low taper fade over the beat, effectively setting us about three layers deep with this meme already. You following me, camera guy?

This amateur remix was embraced by TikTokers, who are already in love with both the Low Taper Fade meme and the Locked in Alien meme. They started using the song as a brainrot audio, which was then brought to new peaks when TikToker @notcltnedits made a high-quality edit of the Locked in Alien meme that replaces the alien with Ninja.

Some TikTokers are calling this the first meme of 2025, although there's been a lot of debate over what the real first meme of the year is. Regardless, it looks like the Low Taper Fade is coming with us to 2025 and you can feel however you want about that.

Examples

@artsukown Cooked in 2024 served in 2025 #meme #2025 #artsunkown #mrunkownartist #drawing #lowtaper ♬ original sound – Arts

@clippedstory90 #lowtaperfade #lockedin #alien #fyp ♬ original sound – HepaTitusBA4

@artsukown And u know what else is massive #drawing #lowtaper #lockedin #mrunkownartist #artsunkown ♬ original sound – Arts

@notcltnedits Ninja Locked in with the Low Taper Fade // vocals @hepatitusba4 #fyp #viral #edit #trending #ninja #ninjaedit #lowtaperfade #lockinalien #alienmeme ♬ original sound – notcltnedits

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We'll be back next Friday with another edition of our Weekly Meme Roundup series, so stay tuned!