About

Christopher Moltisanti Explains, also known as Christopher Moltisanti Weighs In On Current Events, refers to The Sopranos character Christopher Moltisanti (played by Michael Imperioli), among other characters, explaining internet slang and meme terminology to Tony Soprano, often following the two phrasal templates "It's called an X, T," or, "It's called X, Tone." Overall, it's a variant of the Ay, Tone trend. The explainer format started on Twitter in mid-2019 and later became associated with a gimmick account that focused on it in mid-2021.

Origin

Ay, Tone Precursor

Ay, Tone is a Sopranos meme that started in early 2018 on Twitter and involved an image macro of the character Paulie Gualtieri, played by Tony Sirico, wearing a red tracksuit and raising his hand, taken from the 68th episode of the show titled "Mayhem" that aired on March 26th, 2006. (shown below, left). On February 18th, 2018, Twitter^[1] user mockfountain posted the first known iteration of the meme, showing Paulie in a scene from Twin Peaks. The tweet received six likes in four years (shown below, right).

Christopher Moltisanti Weighs In On Current Events

Despite low engagement, mockfountain's tweet^[1] led to multiple iterations going into 2019.^[2] On June 14th, 2019, Twitter^[3] user Sonny5ideUp posted a version of "Ay, Tone" that had Paulie explain CBD to Tony, earning roughly 4,400 likes in three years (shown below, left). The comedic set-up of the aforementioned tweet, centered on explaining a slang term to Tony, would later inspire the Twitter account MoltisantiThots to start posting content that followed the same premise. On April 14th, 2021, the Twitter^[4] account MoltisantiThots posted its first tweet, earning over 770 likes in 14 months (shown below, right).

Spread

On April 23rd, 2021, the Twitter^[5] account MoltisantiThots posted a tweet that showed Christopher smoking a cigarette and explaining NFTs to Tony, earning roughly 90,900 likes in 14 months (shown below, left). The success of the aforementioned tweet inspired more Twitter users to follow the trend. For instance, on April 24th, 2021, Twitter^[6] user internetkendra posted a tweet that showed Christopher explaining the "Lindy Effect" and "Lindy Walk," earning roughly 1,300 likes in 14 months (shown below, right).

The Twitter account MoltisantiThots became dormant after April 2021, however, the theme of its posts continued to spread to other platforms. For instance, on November 1st, 2021, the Instagram^[7] page quadrant posted a version showing Christopher humorously explaining gay sex to Tony, earning roughly 2,200 likes in seven months (shown below).

Additionally, videos of Christopher Moltisanti explaining slang to Tony surfaced on TikTok in 2021 and 2022. For instance, on April 28th, 2021, TikToker^[8] jake_molloy posted a video that impersonated MoltisantiThots' tweet,^[5] earning roughly 18,800 plays and 1,500 likes in 14 months (shown below, left). On May 27th, 2022, TikToker^[9] benjimanz posted a video where "Christopher Moltisanti explains to Tony how he fumbled the bladee vinyl drop," earning roughly 63,200 plays and 7,200 likes in one month (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Templates

Search Interest

External References