About

2001 Just Called… They Hit The South Tower is a catchphrase and referential meme referencing the September 11th attacks and a continuation of They Hit The Pentagon from Turning Red. Online, the phrase has been used as both a reference to the earlier meme, as well as a repurposing of the classic insult "X just called, they want Y back."

Origin

As part of the ongoing meme trend of They Hit The Pentagon, the catchphrase became used as a bait-and-switch phrase with a meme initially seeming to go one way before having the punchline be a "they hit the Pentagon" reference. On January 7th, 2023, TikToker primeofchaos^[1] uploaded a TikTok of him starting up the classic insult "2001 just called, they want their style back" but instead swapped out the insult for the side-reference "they just hit the south tower," which comes from the George Bush Learning About 9/11 meme. The TikTok would get over 3 million likes in two months (shown below).

Spread

On January 10th, 2023, TikToker Farzy^[2] would add to the initial setup of the joke before going through the same setup and punchline, receiving over 101,000 likes in two months for their video and expanding the phrase's capabilities (shown below).

As the phrase continued to spread, the ways to bring it up also started to evolve, with TikToker NotMattJ04^[3] showcasing another example of a setup on January 11th, 2023, by using the "got your nose" joke as a way to reference 2001 and bring out the punchline, instead opting for "they hit the second tower" instead of the "South Tower." The video earned over 3.6 million likes in two months (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References