About

Bee and Barb, August 22nd, 2018, 9pm Incident refers to a series of videos on TikTok claiming that, during a game of Skyrim on the night of August 22nd, 2018, something traumatizing happened in the Bee & Barb tavern in Riften. The incident, first shared by TikToker @dunmerdaph in July 2023, was popularized that August, with some asking for the context behind it. The meme does not appear to be based on any real, known incident and was seemingly made up to troll viewers.

Origin

On July 18th, 2023, TikToker^[1] @dunmerdaph posted a slideshow to TikTok consisting of three images. The first is an image of Mr. Incredible looking happy from the Mr. Incredible Becoming Uncanny format, captioned, "Me enjoying Skyrim on August 22nd 2018. The second shows an image of the Bee and Barb from Skyrim, captioned, "Enters the bee and barb at 9pm." The last shows Mr. Incredible, now uncanny, captioned "Traumatized." The video gained over 779,000 views in a month (shown below, top). TikToker^[3] @argonian_lifts_her_tail made a similar video on the same day, garnering over 17,000 views in the same span of time (shown below, bottom). It is unclear who posted their video first.

Spread

The meme spread throughout July 2023, with several other TikTokers referencing the alleged "Bee and Barb incident." For example, on July 18th, 2023, TikToker^[2] @jarlblaine posted a video referencing the incident, garnering over 61,000 views in a month (shown below, left). On July 20th, TikToker^[5] @argonian_lifts_her_tail posted a meme referencing the incident that gained over 78,000 views in a similar span of time (shown below, right).

On August 14th, TikToker^[4] @dunmerdaph posted a new video about the incident, garnering over 44,400 views in four days (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References