About

Dear Parents is a phrasal template parodying parental concerns that their children are engaging in romantic relationships while looking at their smartphones. The full phrase reads, "Dear parents, just because your child is smiling at their screen doesn't mean that they're talking to a guy or girl." This is then followed by what the child is actually looking at, which is generally expressing a fandom or humorous and absurd in nature.

Origin

The earliest known usage of the phrase was posted by Twitter ^[1] user @particuIarmaze on March 15th, 2018. They tweeted, "Dear parents, just because your child is smiling at their screen doesn't mean that they're talking to a guy or girl, they just found a perfect meme for a situation. Let me BreaTHe."

Spread

Shortly after the first instance, the template became more commonly used. Three days later, on March 18th, Twitter^[2] user @zouislegendsx tweeted, "Dear parents, just because your child is smiling at their phone doesn’t mean they are texting their bf or gf, they are probably listening to On the loose by @NiallOfficial." The tweet (shown below, left) received more than 90 retweets and 320 likes in three months.

The following month, Twitter^[3] user @bangtan tweeted, "dear parents, just because your child is smiling fondly at their phone doesn’t mean they have a bf or gf, maybe they’re just watching the fancam of taekook dance the tango infront of thousands of people cause they’re in love and it’s what they deserve." Within two months, the post (shown below, center) received more than 5,000 retweets and 10,000 likes.

In June of that year, the meme was revived with a post by Twitter^[4] user @loveisasecret, who tweeted, "dear parents, just because your child is smiling at their phone doesn't mean they have a boyfriend/girlfriend. maybe they're just looking at high quality photos of taylor swift. Within 10 days, the post (shown below, center) received more than 1,000 retweets and 6,000 likes.

Three days later, on June 7th, Twitter^[5] user @greenIight tweeted, "dear parents, just because your child is smiling at their phone doesn't mean they have a boyfriend / girlfriend. maybe they're just looking at a low quality gif of ariana grande saying 'and what about it?'" The post (shown below) became one of the most shared versions of the template, receiving more than 28,000 retweets and 149,000 likes in one week.

On June 13th, the Twitter^[6] account for Insider published a Moments page for the memes.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References