Bryan Cranston Sigma Barbershop Quartet

About

Bryan Cranston Sigma Barbershop Quartet, also known as Bryan Cranston Sigma Dance, refers to a series of Sigma edits on Instagram Reels and TikTok that use a video of actor Bryan Cranston (known for his role as Walter White on Breaking Bad) putting on a hat and dancing with a barbershop quartet during his Saturday Night Live (SNL) monologue from 2013. TikToker Shuvro Edits created the edit most commonly used in the Sigma memes, carried on en masse by Instagram user @1y3.n who added their own watermark. The video was most often put beneath image macros and other videos to indicate that the above content was "sigma" (as in, "sigma males," a term that describes men who are successful and popular but also silent and rebellious). The simple Sigma Grindset edits were parodied by other video creators and meme pages on Instagram and Twitter / X. Most of the videos used a slowed remix of the Aku Sayang song. The format was parodied alongside other "sigma edit" tropes like the Patrick Bateman and Joker Lightning Eyes and AI Rick Laughing videos.

Origin

On October 2nd, 2010, actor Bryan Cranston hosted SNL.^[1] His monologue from the episode was posted to SNL's YouTube^[2] channel three years later on September 18th, 2013, gaining over 506,400 views in 11 years. At the video's 1:42-minute mark (shown below), Cranston queues music as other cast members, including Kenan Thompson, Bobby Moynihan, Bill Hader and Taran Killam, join him as a barbershop quartet. Cranston puts a top hat on and starts bouncing and dancing with the group.

The earliest discovered meme to use the Bryan Cranston dance from the SNL monologue was posted by TikToker^[2] @fw.riley9 on May 17th, 2022. It was a cropped version of an earlier video posted by the TikToker that was later deleted. The video gained over 100,000 plays and 5,600 likes in two years (shown below).

Spread

On May 20th, 2022, TikToker^[3] @anti_scarri88 posted an iteration reading, "Teacher: I need someone strong to move the desks / Me and the boys:" receiving over 247,000 plays and 25,700 likes in two years (shown below, left).

On October 8th, 2023, TikToker^[4] @shuvro.edits posted a video that used Cranston's barbershop quartet dance, placing it beneath a screenshot of a Brazil vs. Argentina football game, object labeling Cranston and the SNL cast, "My friends." The video received roughly 212,000 plays and 19,100 likes in seven months (shown below, right).

On December 28th, 2023, Instagram^[5] user @1y3.n posted a Reel that used @shuvro.edits' format, receiving over 7 million views in five months (shown below, left). On January 3rd, 2024, Instagram^[6] user @1y3.n posted another Reel with the format, using a slowed remix of the "Aku Sayang" song.^[7] The Reel received over 26.2 million views in four months (shown below, right).

Parodies of the format surfaced en masse in May 2024, such as a Reel posted by Instagram^[8] user @zuccy123456 on May 20th, 2024, gaining over 55,900 likes in nine days (shown below).

Also on May 20th, X^[9] user @blephin_ tweeted a parody video, receiving over 3,400 likes in nine days (shown below).

Nobody is getting into bros phone 💀 pic.twitter.com/CPqbw3hr6n

— hydra (@blephin_) May 20, 2024

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References