About

Bro Tried To Sneak In Nebraska refers to a viral video of a TikToker hypothetically asking "if you ain't in Cali, New York, Nebraska, Florida then where tf u at?" The inclusion of Nebraska struck TikTokers as funny in comparison to the other locations, which are known tourist destinations, leading many to assume the video's creator is from Nebraska and tried to "sneak it in" to hype up his home state. This inspired trollish comments of "bro tried to sneak in Nebraska" not only on the original video but on unrelated TikToks, as well as inspiring videos where TikTokers offer up a list of hyped-up things, sneaking one out-of-place entry in the mix with the original line being used as a phrasal template.

Origin

On October 5th, 2021, TikToker^[1] @2tg posted a selfie video with the on-screen caption "if you ain't in Cali, New York, Nebraska, Florida then where tf u at?" The video gained over 2.1 million views in two weeks (shown below). On the same day, TikToker @cadenward_ commented "Bro snuck Nebraska in there… 💀," joking about how unimpressive and out of place Nebraska seems in comparison to the other listed tourist destinations like New York and California, gaining over 172,000 likes in the same span of time.

Spread

Over the course of October, TikTokers began using the phrase "bro tried to sneak in Nebraska" in the captions and comments of unrelated videos without context. It also inspired a trend where TikTokers make similar videos, offering various lists with the snowclone phrase "if you ain't x where tf you at?," sneaking an out-of-place item into the mix. For example, on October 15th, TikToker^[2] @ haseeb215 posted a video with the caption "Every brown girl wishes that one of these men was their husband," mixing himself into the list, gaining over 191,000 views in three days (shown below, left). On October 17th, TikToker^[3] @hjkmlhjml posted a video at a swim meet captioned "if your sport ain't basketball, football, swimming or soccer your sport irrelevant," using "bro tried to sneak in Nebraska" as the video description, gaining over 730,000 views in one day (shown below, right).

The meme also spread outside of TikTok, with many Instagram users commenting with the phrase on posts. On October 17th, Instagram^[4] user memer posted the screenshot of the original video, captioned "Bro really tried to sneak Nebraska in there 💀" gaining over 1,800 likes in a day. The meme has also appeared on Twitter.^[5] On October 18th, Instagram^[6] user mememonk_ posted a video using the phrase as top-text over Skyrim footage, gaining over 150,000 views and 21,000 likes in a day (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References