About

D4DJ Girls Hyping, also known as Death Threats, refers to a series of video caption memes based on a fast-cut clip of four D4DJ characters pretend-DJing. The format was spawned by a version of the clip captioned "*Death Threats" and gained prominence in November 2021.

Origin

Clip

On October 19th, 2020, opening for the then-upcoming anime series D4DJ First Mix (Dig Delight Direct Drive DJ First Mix) premiered.^[1] In the opening, a fast-cut clip of four main characters, members of DJ collective Happy Around! pretend-DJing in front of the camera is shown, with all four characters switching one another within the span of two seconds (shown below).

Music

On October 14th, 2019, producer yung mango uploaded a mashup of Magnolia by Playboi Carti and A Pimp Named Slickback by LAKIM to YouTube,^[2] where it gained over 152,000 views in two years (shown below, left). On September 12th, 2021, YouTuber^[3] yxungixxak posted a remixed version of the mashup with the Roblox Wave Sound mixed in (shown below, right). This version, titled "magnolia x pimp named slick back [gypsy woman & Roblox wave sound effect remix]," gained over 1.3 million views in three months.

Meme Format

Prior to the video caption format, the clip of D4DJ girls hyping was used in a limited number of memes, mostly as source material for edits. On March 23rd, 2021, Coub^[4] user Anime New Edit posted the clip, set to Astronaut in the Ocean, which is the earliest known edit based on the clip, with the post gaining over 50,000 views, 850 likes and 150 recoubs in nine months (shown below, left).

Starting in late March 2021, multiple Coub users uploaded edits of the clip. For example, on March 25th, Coub^[5] user Nova posted an edit combining the clip with "With Me Now" by Blacklite District. The upload gained over 108,000 views, 1,700 likes and 340 recoubs in nine months (shown below, right).

On May 16th, 2021, Facebook^[6] page Shit memes for mexicans who can speak english posted a still image from the clip captioned "Eso está muy POV como dice la chaviza," with the post gaining over 340 reactions and 160 shares in seven months (shown below). The image received further spread online through reposts in the following months.

On October 11th, 2021, Tenor^[7] user zenoyzz uploaded a sped-up GIF Caption in which the clip was combined with the caption "*death threats" (shown below). The GIF was likely created either by zenoyzz or another Discord user for the purpose of being used as a reaction image on Discord.

Spread

Prior to November 9th, 2021, an unknown user combined the GIF caption with "magnolia x pimp named slick back [gypsy woman & Roblox wave sound effect remix]" by yxungixxak, creating a video caption meme. On November 9th, 2021, YouTuber^[8] probably mania uploaded the video caption to YouTube, where it gained over 21,500 views in one month (shown below, left). On November 11th, 2021, YouTuber^[9] LimeZapper posted a remastered version of the meme that gained over 866,200 views in one month (shown below, right).

On November 12th, 2021, TikToker^[10] @kawai.am1tist posted an edit of the clip using a color transition effect. The clip (shown below, left) received over 265,000 views and 30,200 likes in one month (shown below, left). On November 13th, @kawai.am1tist posted^[11] a higher-resolution version of the meme that gained over 318,000 views and 49,200 likes in one month (shown below, right).

On November 13th, TikToker^[12][13] @yujiro_.tardxdd uploaded a similar color transition version of the meme, also posting a cropped version of the video caption on November 14th. The posts gained over 800,000 views and 1.9 million views in one month, respectively.

Following the viral spread of the clips on TikTok and YouTube, users on social media posted remade versions of the video caption meme, replacing both the characters and the caption. On November 14th, YouTuber^[14] Itz Chrisss posted the earliest known remake of the meme, a Roblox version that gained over 12,600 views in three weeks (shown below, left). On November 15th, 2021, YouTuber^[15] KN99 posted a recaptioned meme that gained over 37,500 views in three weeks (shown below, right).

On November 17th, 2021, TikToker^[16] @_maory_ posted an IRL remake of the meme that gained over 3 million views and 376,000 likes in three weeks. On November 18th, TikToker^[17] august_31_1888 posted a comparison video that received over 2.4 million views in the same period.

Starting in late November 2021, multiple remakes of the video caption meme were posted on TikTok, YouTube and Twitter. On December 7th, 2021, YouTuber^[18] Lessons in Meme Culture reported on the spread of the meme.

Related Memes

I Will Beat You to Death

I Will Beat You to Death refer to a series of ironic memes referencing a YouTube comment made by user unlimi7ed bread in a response to an innocuous comment by user Shadow Bonnie.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References