Bro I'm Dead Turns Into Skeleton

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About

Bro I'm Dead *Turns Into Skeleton* or Bro I'm Dead Skeleton Meme refers to a trend on TikTok where one person tells a corny joke to a person off-camera, who responds, "I'm dead," followed by the camera panning back to them to reveal that they've turned into a skeleton, a reference to the Skull Emoji being internet slang for "I'm dead." The earliest video of its kind was posted to TikTok in October 2021 and became a trend in September 2022.

Origin

On October 11th, 2021, TikToker^[1] @vk0be posted a video where a Black man picks up a toy called the "Projector in-a-box" and says, "projector in a box, put my my dick in a box," followed by the camera man saying, "bro I'm dead as fuck," then panning to himself to show a skeleton mask, garnering over 174,000 views in a year (shown below). The video was reposted by numerous TikTokers over the following months, including on July 3rd, 2022 by TikToker^[2] @khronictv, garnering over 8 million views in three months.

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7017909646400736518

Spread

In September 2022, TikTokers began uploading videos similar to @vk0be's where someone tells a corny joke then another person turns into a skeleton after saying "I'm dead." For example, on September 20th, 2022, TikToker^[3] @onepiecefan1896 posted a video where the cameraman says, "Dude Wipes, more like poo wipes," followed by a friend saying, "bro I'm dead" and becoming a skeleton, garnering over 3.9 million views in two weeks (shown below, left). On September 26th, TikToker^[4] @budger08x posted a similar video, garnering over 873,000 views in a week (shown below, right).

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7145667236127132974

https://www.tiktok.com/embed/v2/7147486419886394666

The trend continued to gain popularity in early October. On October 1st, TikToker^[5] @matt.sha posted a video following the trend, garnering over 300,000 view in two days (shown below, left). On October 2nd, TikToker^[6] @1madcoyote posted a video following the trend, garnering over 750,000 view in a day (shown below, right). On the same date, YouTuber^[7] TokPlugg posted a compilation video of the trend.