About

Boyfriends And Girlfriends Are Gonna Come And Go, But This Is For Life is a quote said by the character Phoebe in the show Friends about how important friendship is compared to other things in life. On TikTok, the audio has been used frequently by people who post about their friends, siblings or even internalized trauma that they can't get rid of.

Origin

On March 12th, 2022, the TikToker ciineclips^[1] uploaded the TikTok of Phoebe talking to Joey about how important friendship is, before it cut to several different moments in the show where the Friends were doing something together that involved trust and camaraderie, earning over 850,000 likes in seven months (shown below). The scene in question comes from Season 7, Episode 11 of the Friends TV show, and the audio would go on to get over 80,000 videos made using it in seven months^[2].

Spread

On March 20th, 2022, the first viral usage outside of the origin was made, with the TikToker _zgpsalm^[3] uploading a TikTok that she dedicated to an anonymous friend of hers, saying that while she won't mention them, they should keep going with their life, earning over 380,000 likes in seven months (shown below).

On September 9th, TikToker haleyybaylee uploaded a more ironic take on the sound effect, ending her video with a black screen with "Anxiety" written on it, joking that mental illness will always be a struggle to deal with. In uploading this video, haleyybaylee helped spread the trend even further to her rather large following, helping form a second wave of interest in the trend during the fall of 2022. The TikTok, seen below, earned over 637,000 likes and 11,400 shares in approximately a month.

On September 13th, 2022, the TikToker officialtamminsursok^[4] uploaded a TikTok in which they also use the audio in a bait-and-switch example by having them lip sync it in a cheery way before it quickly cuts to a black screen with the word 'Trauma' being shown, implying that an unknown type of trauma will always stay with them no matter what, and earning them over 1.7 million likes in one month (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References