About

Are They Lovers? Worse is an exploitable image used in a series of memes in which a picture of two characters or people is juxtaposed above a screenshot of a TikTok comment thread in which one user asks, "Are they lovers?" and another, Brittany Broski, responds, "Worse," implying there is more to their relationship than it might appear. The meme was originally posted on Tumblr in July 2023 and gained viral spread over the following months. The comments were purportedly posted to a video on Brittany Broski's TikTok account @lostmymarblesagain, although it is unclear which video the comments were originally left under.

Origin

On July 11th, 2023, Tumblr^[1] user dreamed-itself-waking posted a meme consisting of a photo of Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham from the Hannibal TV series with a TikTok comment exchange edited over the top of it. The first comment, left by Jonathan Heart, reads, "Are they lovers?" The second comment, left by secret brittany (the display name for Brittany Broski's TikTok account @lostmymarblesagain), reads, "worse." The post gained over 8,200 notes in a year (shown below). It is unclear which video the comments were left on originally.

Spread

The meme gained viral spread over the following months. On July 30th, 2023, X^[2] user @hrongaystairs posted a version of the meme using an image of Jace Herondale and Clary Fray from Shadowhunters, who are siblings, about to kiss, garnering over 25,000 likes in a year (shown below, left). On August 11th, X^[3] user @couperwon posted a version of the meme that garnered over 6,900 likes in a year (shown below, right).

On August 12th, 2023, the Facebook^[4] page HOLGE posted a version of the meme that garnered over 28,000 reactions and 5,600 shares in a year. On March 7th, 2024, X^[5] user @imsufjanstevens posted a version of the meme using an image from the movie Past Lives, garnering over 75,000 likes in five months (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References