About

Boys Locker Room refers to a series of memes metaphorically presenting perceived differences between male and female student locker rooms in a comedic, often absurd manner, similar to an earlier When Teacher Says to Get Out of Class format which gained popularity in ironic shitposts in late 2018.

Origin

On April 3rd, 2019, Twitter user @one_dead_world posted a humorous comparison of boys and girls locker rooms.^[9] The tweet gained over 700 retweets and 6,800 likes in one month. In replies to the tweet, numerous users posted more variations of the joke.^[10][11]

[English translation] Boys locker room: *changing in silence*
Girls locker room:
-I hate PE.
-Check out my bra.
-Don't look at me.
-As if there was anything worth looking at.
-Screw that, gonna say my stomach hurts.
-Damn, I got fat.
-Stupid PE.

Spread

In early April 2019, memes in which boy and girl locker rooms were compared in humorous and absurd manner gained spread among Russian-speaking users on VK social network. On April 7th, 2019, VK community такие себе истории от моих друзей и не только ("so-so stories from my friends and other folks") posted one of the earliest examples of the meme using image of Van-Sama, with the post gaining 880 likes in one month (shown below, left).^[5] In the following weeks, the format gained significant popularity in VK, with notable examples of the meme posted by глубокие па смыслу преколы,^[6] FTP,^[7] MDK^[8] and other VK meme communities.

On May 9th, 2019, Redditor LukeChrome posted the first known English variation of the format in /r/memes subreddit using a fan art of Warhammer: 40,000 as a metaphor for what might be happening in the boys locker room.^[1] The post gained over 17,600 upvotes in 24 hours.

In the following 24 hours, multiple posts utilizing the format were posted in /r/memes, /r/dankmemes, /r/teenagers, /r/me_irl and other subreddits. For example, on May 9th, 2019, Redditor ksun4651 made a post using a still from 2017 film Kingsman: The Golden Circle in which gained over 4,400 upvotes in 14 hours (shown below, left).^[2] On the same day, Redditor Zap60seven made a post using a still from 2018 film Black Panther which received over 18,100 upvotes in 13 hours (shown below, right).^[3]

On May 10th, Redditor RitikMukta made an inquiry about the influx of the memes in /r/OutOfTheLoop subreddit.^[4]

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References