About

Dear X, What's Stopping You From Looking Like This?, also written as What's Stopping You From Dressing Like This?, is a phrasal template and catchphrase started on Twitter in early 2020. The phrase is often paired with ideal male and female beauty standards that later evolved into more ironic beauty standard examples.

Origin

Although the exact first use of the snowcloone in a meme is unknown, the "Dear X, What's Stopping You From Looking Like This?" format appeared online as early as March 2020. On March 6th, South African Twitter^[1] user @danielmarven tweeted an early example with a photo of Instagram model @missgeminii^[2] using the caption, "Ladies, Mara what's stopping you from looking like this??" (shown below). The tweet gained roughly 3,000 likes in one week. The catchphrase started here in South African and Ugandan Twitter spheres, later spreading online. The tweet shown below is the most viral example from this early usage, although the phrase's earliest usage was in December 2019.^[3]

Spread

At the end of May 2020, the meme format saw an uptick in usage across a number of platforms. On May 21st, 2020, Ugandan Twitter^[4] user @MbabaziFaith7 used the phrase in a tweet (shown below) depicting a shirtless man, demonstrating its use as an ironic meme. The tweet accumulated over 320 likes in roughly one year.

At the end of May 2020, going into June 2020, the phrasal template was used in multiple iterations. By May 27th, 2020, the phrase caught the attention of branded Twitter^[5] pages as well, like South Park Studios on May 27th, 2020 for example (shown below). The Comedy Central tweet received over 200 likes in roughly one year.

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References