About

2016 I Got Locked In That Cell refers to a TikTok trend that was popularized in January 2025 in which people posted Instagram Story recreations of basketball fails set to the song "Graffiti" by rapper NBA Young Boy. The videos typically use the song lyrics function of Instagram Stories and show high school basketball players missing dramatically set-up shots or fumbling seemingly unpracticed plays.

Origin

The song used in the trend, "Graffiti" by rapper YoungBoy Never Broke Again, was released on July 28th, 2017, and the TikTok trend primarily uses just a portion of verse one from the track (seen below).

2016 I got locked in that cell and they ain't let me out
Money I'm talking, you know that I'm ballin' I'm hustlin and I ain't never seen a drought

One of the earliest TikTok posts that likely kicked off the "2016 I Got Locked In That Cell" was a December 13th, 2024, post by TikToker^[1] @myl.q.s that showed a low-quality photoshopped image of a boy jumping to the shoulder level of his opponent to shoot a basket. The post gathered over 1 million plays and 190,000 likes in a month.

Spread

The trend picked up traction in January 2025, as seen in a January 3rd, 2025, post by TikToker^[2] @gogoyardd, showing a person jumping in a bowling alley as if to throw the bowling ball like a basketball. The post gathered over 580,000 plays and 100,000 likes in a month.

TikToker^[3] @clopezz10 posted a similar image on January 5th, gathering over 900,000 plays and 170,000 likes. On January 6th, 2025, TikToker^[4] @brysonthaoo posted an image of an overweight person palming a basketball and hopping on one foot, gathering over 4 million plays and 600,000 likes in three weeks.

On January 7th, TikToker^[5] @fraud posted a high-definition image of a person's basketball photoshoot in which they can be seen jumping as if to dunk but missing the rim of the basket by a far shot. The post gathered over 3.8 million plays and 690,000 likes in three weeks.

On January 11th, 2025, TikToker^[6] @woejamei posted a video of a basketball game where an overweight player misses the basket, gathering over 4.8 million plays and 800,000 likes in three weeks.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References