About

Cave Diver Memes, also known as Cave Divers Be Like or Cave Divers For No Reason At All, refers to a series of memes about people who explore caves and do cave diving, often called cavers, cave divers or cave explorers. The memes express the sentiment that cave divers are crazy because the activity seems terrifying and extremely dangerous for little reward. Memes making fun of cave divers surfaced en masse following discourse about the Nutty Putty Cave Incident when a man named John Edwards Jones died inside a Utah cave upside-down in 2009. Cave Diver Memes resurfaced en masse on TikTok and Instagram Reels in early 2025 when video creators posted skits about cave divers discovering impossibly tiny holes and crevices to wedge themselves into. The trend's visual punchline was shoes sticking out of the initially presented opening. The trend's primary TikTok sound was an instrumental for the Xaviersobased song "Vibrator."

Origin

Cave Diver Memes largely started with viral posts about the Nutty Putty Cave Incident, which was a fatal cave exploration incident that occurred in 2009. A man named John Edwards Jones and three other cavers entered Nutty Putty Cave near Utah Lake in Utah with the purpose of finding and passing "The Birth Canal," a tight but navigable passageway located inside the cave.

During the expedition, Jones mistook an unmapped passageway for the entrance to The Birth Canal. Jones attempted crawling through it before getting himself stuck in an upside-down position inside a vertical fissure 10 by 18 inches wide. The rescue efforts, which involved setting up a sophisticated rope-and-pulley system, failed, and Jones succumbed 27-28 hours later after suffering a cardiac arrest due to the strain on his body. Jones' body has not been recovered, and the entrance hole to the cave has been sealed with concrete.^[1]

YouTubers^[2][3] like Real Horror and Zach D. Films posted video essays and Shorts about the incident in the early 2020s.

On November 29th, 2023, the X^[4] account @Morbidful tweeted about the Nutty Putty Cave Incident, attaching a diagram of how Jones was stuck inside the cave. It received over 305,000 likes in two years (shown below).

Memes about the absurdity of cave diving surfaced en masse in the quote tweets and replies to the abovementioned post. For instance, on November 29th, YouTuber Justin Whang posted the first viral quote tweet, comparing the diagram to Saddam Hussein's Hiding Place, gaining over 4,600 likes in two years (shown below).

Spread

Memes about the Nutty Putty Cave Incident continued heading into 2024. For instance, on February 3rd, X^[5] user @bendergirlfrend tweeted the diagram, captioning it, "$1000 a month, utilities not included, no pets allowed," pretending that it was a listing for a small apartment. The tweet received over 66,000 likes in a year (shown below).

It gained viral reposts on other social media sites like iFunny^[6] in the following days.

Cave Divers Be Like / Cave Divers For No Reason At All

On February 8th, 2025, TikToker^[7] @bigmoneyjaytee posted a video skit with a caption reading, "Cave divers for no reason," showing himself measuring the crack beneath his fridge, then cutting to a pair of shoes sticking out of the crevice. The video gained over 1.4 million likes in six days (shown below).

On February 10th, TikToker^[8] @sharvq posted a similar video skit with a caption reading, "Cave divers after finding literally 1 inch of crawl space," gaining over 1.5 million likes in four days (shown below).

The video's TikTok sound was an instrumental for the Xaviersobased song "Vibrator" which became the trend's primary sound in the following days.

The memes spread to Instagram Reels soon after, like on February 13th, 2025, Instagram^[9] user @officialrandyig reposted a TikTok video, originally shared by TikToker^[10] @kpxchris00, about "Cave divers learning about quantum entanglement so they can crawl in between atoms," gaining over 269,600 likes in a day (shown below).

Also on February 13th, X^[11] user @yepitsconner tweeted a screenshot of TikToker^[12] @wa.amg63's video about, "Cave divers checking their oil level," showing a pair of shoes sticking out of a car's hood, gaining over 83,000 likes in a day (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References