But Did You Die?

About

But Did You Die? is a memorable quote said by the character Mr. Chow (portrayed by Ken Jeong) from The Hangover Part II movie. A still image of the scene paired with the catchphrase became a prevalent image macro, reaction image and GIF around October 2013 on the internet, typically being used to indirectly tell someone that they're complaining about something of no importance.

Origin

On May 27th, 2011, the sequel movie The Hangover Part II premiered in theaters.^[1] In one particular scene, the characters are complaining about the series of misfortunes they're facing, to which Mr. Chow's character (played by Ken Jeong) abruptly interrupts them by saying “Oh you’re having a bad day… did you die?” The scene was uploaded to YouTube^[2] by user @WilliamJamesPowell on June 13th, 2011, which garnered over 692,000 views and 1,500 likes in 12 years. (shown below)

One of the earliest found posts using a picture of Mr. Chow paired with the overlay text "But did you die?" was uploaded on the Quick Meme website^[3] by an anonymous user on October 28th, 2013. The post (shown below) also featured the text "Oh, you're sore from working out?" in a humorous way to poke fun at someone who is being overly dramatic. The post garnered roughly 280 shares in a decade.

Spread

In the following years, a still image of the scene saw viral spread online, with users sharing reaction GIFs and images related to people who are complaining about a minor inconvenience.

For example, on March 5th, 2014, Memedroid^[4] user @Hysp posted the image macro (shown below, left) paired with the overlay text "when people insult my driving," which received over 1.600 reactions in nine years. On December 31st, 2018, Facebook^[5] user @SarcasmMother posted the frames of the scene paired with the text "I'm going to start applying this to everyday life." The post (shown below, right) garnered over 9,000 likes and 1,800 shares in five years.

On January 14th, 2016, an anonymous Tenor^[6] user uploaded a GIF of the scene to the site, frequently used as a reaction online (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References