About

Can You Buy Me Pads? is an exploitable meme format that involves listing characters from certain media together with their imagined replies to a text message request to buy pads. Spawned by a viral tweet, the format first achieved popularity on X / Twitter and Tumblr in 2020, seeing another resurgence again in early 2024 after it was edited into additional memes.

Origin

On April 20th, 2020, X^[1] / Twitter user @junsjihan made a thread in which they imagined members of Seventeen, a K-pop band, replying to a text request to buy pads. The first post in the thread accrued over 5,000 reposts and 17,300 likes prior to being removed (several posts from the thread shown below).

One of the replies in the thread, "what size your pussy," referenced "What Size Pussy You Wear," an earlier meme about pads.

Spread

Following the viral spread of the thread, the format achieved popularity online in late April 2020, most notably on X / Twitter and on Tumblr. For example, on April 21st, 2020, X^[2] user @HQT0BI0 made a thread about Haikyuu!! characters that garnered over 7,100 reposts and 18,000 likes in four years (shown below, left). On April 24th, Tumblr^[3] user seerofmike made a meme about Apex Legends that received over 390 reblogs and 1,700 likes in four years (shown below, right).

The format regained prominence online in January 2024 after X^[4] user @ancuninz posted a Baldur's Gate 3 version of the meme on January 14th (shown below), gaining over 4,600 reposts and 42,000 likes in nine days.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References