A 23 Year Old Sculpted This. What's Your Excuse?

About

A 23 Year Old Sculpted This. What's Your Excuse? is the text caption of a viral tweet by user @Western_Trad that was attached to two photographs of the 1622 statue The Rape of Proserpina by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The tweet was posted in mid-January 2023 and went viral over the course of the month. It was criticized by some commenters for shaming artists and being inconsiderate of individual circumstances. It also inspired users to troll the poster by quote-retweeting it with images of things they made when they were 23 or younger, including things like memes, pieces of fan art and video thumbnails.

Origin

On January 12th, 2023, Twitter^[1] user @Western_Trad posted two photographs of The Rape of Proserpina by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, writing, "A 23 year old sculpted this. What's your excuse?" The tweet gained over 143,000 likes, 56,000 quote-retweets and 373 million views in two weeks (shown below).

The tweet gained numerous comments criticizing its message shortly after by those who perceived it as shaming artists and being inconsiderate of individual circumstances that may keep them from producing art at their maximum potential (example shown below, left).^[2][3] Some also posted jokes and memes in the comments mocking the post, while others shared things that they created when they were 23 or younger, both serious and humorous in nature (example shown below, right).^[4]

Spread

The tweet inspired over 56,000 quote retweets over the next two weeks as users quote-retweeted and commented under it with things that they created when they were 23 or under, often sharing things like memes and works of fan art. On January 12th, 2023, Twitter^[5] user @banksmanwoman commented under the post writing, "I’m trans. I am my own sculptor, and that’s the most impressive thing you can be," garnering over 450 likes in two weeks (shown below). It was then reposted by Instagram^[6] user garbagehuman4.0 on January 13th, garnering over 8,000 likes in a similar timeframe, and also by the Facebook^[7] page Common Sense Extremists: The Fire Rises the next day, garnering over 3,700 reactions and 180 shares in two weeks.

On January 20th, 2023, The Chive^[8] then published a collection of tweets in response to the post. On January 23rd, Twitter^[9] user @CircleToonsHD quote retweeted the post with a beans meme they made, garnering over 45,000 likes in a day (shown below, left). On the same day, Twitter^[10] user @leviathan_twt posted the video thumbnail for "Chug Jug With You" (his viral song), garnering over 59,000 likes in a day (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

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External References