About

Chinese Man Offering A Cigarette is an exploitable image used series of memes, including redraws, based on a photo of a Chinese man handing a cigarette forward, as if offering it to the person looking at the meme, while another Chinese man behind him smokes. The image originates from a video by Douyin user @dejiang1592 and went viral in late October 2025 when it was reposted to X / Twitter by user @0thernet with the caption, "ancestors need you to lock in son," inspiring redraws in which the men and the cigarettes are replaced with other characters and objects from pop culture.

Origin

On October 26th, 2025, X^[1] user @0thernet posted a screenshot from a video by Douyin^[2] user @dejiang1592 of two Chinese men standing outside what appears to be a temple, one holding a cigarette out to the viewer and the other smoking in the background, writing, "ancestors need you to lock in son," garnering over 183,000 likes and 18,000 reposts in a week. This is the earliest known meme to use the image.

Spread

The image garnered viral spread over the following days in late October and early November 2025, also inspiring redraws, mostly on X / Twitter.

For example, on October 29th, 2025, X^[3] user @SuitedWolf redrew the image with two anthropomorphic animals or furries, one offering a lollipop instead of a cigarette, garnering over 14,800 likes in four days.

On November 1st, X^[4] user @vestigialbones posted a redraw replacing the men with Sam and Max, garnering over 54,100 likes and 4,900 reposts in a day.

On November 2nd, 2025, X^[5] user @MYViq_MOKOLS posted a version of the meme replacing the men with two from Bocchi the Rock, garnering over 4,000 likes in under a day.

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References